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MY  GARDEN  ACQUAINTANCE, 

A  GOOD  WORD   FOR  WINTER, 

A  MOOSEHEAD  JOURNAL. 

BY  JAMES   RUSSELL  LOWELL. 

THE   FARMER'S    BOY. 

BY  ROBERT  BLOOMFIELD. 


ILLUSTRATED. 


BOSTON: 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY. 
(STfce  fttoeiffte  $re#&  <Camfcrifr0e. 


Copyright,  1864  and  1871, 
By  JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL. 


GIFT 


nl 


MY  GARDEN  ACQUAINTANCE 

AND 

A  GOOD  WORD  FOR  WINTER. 


582 


CONTENTS. 

Pag* 
MY  GARDEN  ACQUAINTANCE      ....      5 

A  GOOD  WORD  FOR  WINTER  ....        ^ 


MY  GARDEN  ACQUAINTANCE. 


XE  of  the  most  delightful  books  in 
my  father's  library  was  White's  Nat 
ural  History  of  Selborne.  For  me 
it  has  rather  gained  in  charm  with  years.  I 
used  to  read  it  without  knowing  the  secret 
of  the  pleasure  I  found  in  it,  but  as  I  grow 
older  I  begin  to  detect  some  of  the  simple 
expedients  of  this  natural  magic.  Open  the 
book  where  you  will,  it  takes  you  out  of 
doors.  In  our  broiling  July  weather  one 
can  walk  out  with  this  genially  garrulous 
Fellow  of  Oriel  and  find  refreshment  instead 
of  fatigue.  You  have  no  trouble  in  keeping 
abreast  of  him  as  he  ambles  along  on  his 
hobby-horse,  now  pointing  to  a,  pretty  view, 
now  stopping  to  watch  the  motions  of  a  bird 


6  MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE. 

or  an  insect,  or  to  bag  a  specimen  for  the 
Honorable  Daines  Barrington  or  Mr.  Pen 
nant.  In  simplicity  of  taste  and  natural 
refinement  he  reminds  one  of  Walton  ;  in 
tenderness  toward  what  he  would  have  called 
the  brute  creation,  of  Cowper.  I  do  not 
know  whether  his  descriptions  of  scenery  are 
good  or  not,  but  they  have  made  me  familiar 
with  his  neighborhood.  Since  L  first  read 
him,  I  have  walked  over  some  of  his  favor 
ite  haunts,  but  I  still  see  them  through  his 
eyes  rather  than  by  any  recollection  of  actual 
and  personal  vision.  The  book  has  also  the 
delightfulness  of  absolute  leisure.  Mr.  White 
seems  never  to  have  had  any  harder  work  to 
do  than  to  study  the  habits  of  his  feathered 
fellow-townsfolk,  or  to  watch  the  ripening 
of  his  peaches  on  the  wall.  His  volumes 
tire  the  journal  of  Adam  in  Paradise, 

"  Annihilating  all  that 's  made 
To  a  green  thought  in  a  green  shade." 

It  is  positive  rest  only  to  look  into  that  gar 
den  of  his.  It  is  vastly  better  than  to 

"  See  great  Diocletian  walk 
In  the  Salonian  garden's  noble  shade/' 


MY    GARDEN    ACQUAINTANCE.  7 

for  thither  ambassadors  intrude  to  bring  with 
them  the  noises  of  Rome,  while  here  the 
world  has  no  entrance.  No  rumor  of  the 
revolt  of  the  American  Colonies  seems  to 
have  reached  him.  "  The  natural  term  of 
an  hog's  life  "  has  more  interest  for  him  than 
that  of  an  empire.  Burgoyne  may  surrender 
and  welcome  ;  of  what  consequence  is  that 
compared  with  the  fact  that  we  can  explain 
the  odd  tumbling  of  rooks  in  the  air  by  their 
turning  over  "  to  scratch  themselves  with  one 
claw  "  ?  All  the  couriers  in  Europe  spurring 
rowel-deep  make  110  stir  in  Mr.,  White's  lit- 

'JT*  j       <<S~A-rTr^JL.      \  K^AA.^i'VV.  M_Jv jf^u'^,  ^  "*  """""* 

tie  Chartreuse  ;  but  me  'arrival  61  the  house- 
martin  a  day  earlier  or  later  than  last  year 
is  a  piece  of  news  worth  sending  express  to 
all  his  correspondents. 

Another  secret  charm  of  this  book  is  its 
inadvertent '  humor,  so  much  the  more  deli 
cious  because  unsuspected  by  the  author. 
How  pleasant  is  his  innocent  vanity  in  add 
ing  to  the  list  of  the  British,  and  still  more 
of  the  Selbornian,/6m?m  /  I  believe  he  would 
gladly  have  consented  to  be  eaten  by  a  tiger 
or  a  crocodile,  if  by  that  means  the  occasional 


8  MY    GARDEN    ACQUAINTANCE. 

presence  within  the  parish  limits  of  either 
of  these  anthropophagous  brutes  coulcl  have 
been  established.  He  brags  of  no  fine  so 
ciety,  but  is  plainly  a  little  elated  by  "  hav 
ing  considerable  acquaintance  with  a  tame 
brown  owl."  Most  of  us  have  known  our 
share  of  owls,  but  few  can  boast  of  intimacy 
with  a  feathered  one.  The  great  events  of 
Mr.  White's  life,  too,  have  that  dispropor 
tionate  importance  which  is  always  humor 
ous.  To  think  of  his  hands  having  actually 
been  thought  worthy  (as  neither  Willough- 
by's  nor  Ray's  were)  to  hold  a  stilted  plover,; 
the  Charadrius  himantopus,  with  no  back  toe, 
and  therefore  "  liable,  in  speculation,  to  per 
petual  vacillations  "  !  I  wonder,  by  the  way, 
if  metaphysicians  have  no  hind  toes.  In 
1770  he  makes  the  acquaintance  in  Sussex 
of  "  an  old  family  tortoise,"  which  had  then 
•oeen  domesticated  for  thirty  years.  It  is 
clear  that  he  fell  in  love  with  it  at  first 
sight.  We  have  no  means  of  tracing  the 
growth  of  his  passion  ;  but  in  1780  we  find 
him  eloping  with  its  object  in  a  post-chaise. 
"The  rattle  and  hurry  of  the  journey  so  per- 


MY    GARDEN    ACQUAINTANCE.  9 

fectly  roused  it  that,  when  I  turned  it  out 
in  a  border,  it  walked  twice  down  to  the 
bottom  of  my  garden."  It  reads  like  a  Court 
Journal  :  "  Yesterday  morning  H.  R.  H.  the 
Princess  Alice  took  an  airing  of  half  an  hour 
on  the  terrace  of  Windsor  Castle."  This  tor 
toise  might  have  been  a  member  of  the  Royal 
Society,  if  he  could  have  condescended  to  so 
ignoble  an  ambition.  It  had  but  just  been 
discovered  that  a  surface  inclined  at  a  cer 
tain  angle  with  the  plane  of  the  horizon 
took  more  of  the  sun's  rays.  The  tortoise 
had  always  known  this  (though  he  unosten 
tatiously  made  no  parade  of  it),  and  used 
accordingly  to  tilt  himself  up  against  the 
garden-wall  in  the  autumn.  He  seems  to 
have  been  more  of  a  philosopher  than  even 
Mr.  White  himself,  caring  for  nothing  but 
to  get  under  a  cabbage-leaf  when  it  rained, 
or  the  sun  was  too  hot,  and  to  bury  himself 
alive  before  frost,  —  a  four-footed  Diogenes, 
who  carried  his  tub  on  his  back. 

There  are  moods  in  which  this  kind  of 
history  is  infinitely  refreshing.  These  crea 
tures  whom  we  affect  to  look  down  upon  as 


10        MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE. 

the  drudges  of  instinct  are  members  of  a 
commonwealth  whose  constitution  rests  on 
immovable  bases.  Never  any  need  of  re 
construction  there  !  They  never  dream  of 
settling  it  by  vote  that  eight  hours  are  equal 
to  ten,  or  that  one  creature  is  as  clever  as 
another  and  no  more.  They  do  not  use  their 
poor  wits  in  regulating  God's  clocks,  nor 
think  they  cannot  go  astray  so  long  as  they 
carry  their  guide-board  about  with  them,  — 
a  delusion  we  often  practise  upon  ourselves 
with  our  high  and  mighty  reason,  that  ad 
mirable  finger-post  which  points  every  way 
and  always  right.  It  is  good  for  us  now 
and  then  to  converse  with  a  world  like  Mr. 
White's,  where  Man  is  the  least  important 
of  animals.  But  one  who,  like  me,  has  al 
ways  lived  in  the  country  and  always  on  the 
same  spot,  is  drawn  to  his  book  by  other 
occult  sympathies.  Do  we  not  share  his 
indignation  at  that  stupid  Martin  who  had 
graduated  his  thermometer  no  lower  than  4° 
above  zero  of  Fahrenheit,  so  that  in  the  cold 
est  weather  ever  known  the  mercury  basely 
absconded  into  the  bulb,  and  left  us  to  see 


MY    GARDEN    ACQUAINTANCE.        11 

the  victory  slip  through  our  fingers  just  as 
they  were  closing  upon  it  ?  No  man.  I  sus 
pect,  ever  lived  long  in  the  country  without 
being  bitten  by  these  meteorological  ambi 
tions.  He  likes  to  be  hotter  and  colder,  to 
have  been  more  deeply  snowed  up,  to  have 
more  trees  and  larger  blown  down  than  his 
neighbors.  With  us  descendants  of  the  Pu 
ritans  especially,  these  weather-competitions 
supply  the  abnegated  excitement  of  the  race 
course.  Men  learn  to  value  thermometers 
of  the  true  imaginative  temperament,  capa 
ble  of  prodigious  elations  and  correspond 
ing  dejections.  The  other  day  (5th  July)  I 
marked  98°  in  the  shade,  my  high-water 
mark,  higher  by  one  degree  than  I  had  ever 
seen  it  before.  I  happened  to  meet  a  neigh 
bor  ;  as  we  mopped  our  brows  at  each  other, 
he  told  me  that  he  had  just  cleared  100°, 
and  1  went  home  a  beaten  man.  I  had  not 
felt  the  heat  before,  save  as  a  beautiful  exag 
geration  of  sunshine  ;  but  now  it  oppressed 
me  with  the  prosaic  vulgarity  of  an  oven. 
What  had  been  poetic  intensity  became  all 
at  once  rhetorical  hyperbole.  1  might  sus- 


12        MY    GARDEN    ACQUAINTANCE. 

pect  his  thermometer  (as  indeed  I  did,  for 
we  Harvard  men  are  apt  to  think  ill  of  any 
graduation  but  our  own)  ;  but  it  was  a  poor 
consolation.  The  fact  remained  that  his  her 
ald  Mercury,  standing  a-tiptoe,  could  look 
down  on  mine.  I  seem  to  glimpse  some 
thing  of  this  familiar  weakness  in  Mr.  White. 
He,  too,  has  shared  in  these  mercurial  tri 
umphs  and  defeats.  Nor  do  I  doubt  that 
he  had  a  true  country-gentleman's  interest 
in  the  weathercock ;  that  his  first  question 
on  coming  down  of  a  morning  was,  like 
Barabbas's, 

"  Into  what  quarter  peers  my  halcyon's  bill  ? " 

It  is  an  innocent  and  healthful  employ 
ment  of  the  mind,  distracting  one  from  too 
continual  study  of  himself,  and  leading  him 
to  dwell  rather  upon  the  indigestions  of  the 
elements  than  his  own.  "  Did  the  wind 
back  round,  or  go  about  with  the  sun  ? "  is 
a  rational  question  that  bears  not  remotely 
on  the  making  of  hay  and  the  prosperity  of 
crops.  I  have  little  doubt  that  the  regulated 
observation  of  the  vane  in  many  different 


MY    GARDEN    ACQUAINTANCE.        13 

places,  and  the  interchange  of  results  by  tel 
egraph,  would  put  the  weather,  as  it  were, 
in  our  power,  by  betraying  its  ambushes  be 
fore  it  is  ready  to  give  the  assault.  At  first 
sight,  nothing  seems  more  drolly  trivial  than 
the  lives  of  those  whose  single  achievement 
is  to  record  the  wind  and  the  temperature 
three  times  a  day.  Yet  such  men  are  doubt 
less  sent  into  the  world  for  this  special  end, 
and  perhaps  there  is  no  kind  of  accurate  ob 
servation,  whatever  its  object,  that  has  not 
its  final  use  and  value  for  some  one  or  other. 
It  is  even  to  be  hoped  that  the  speculations 
of  our  newspaper  editors  and  their  myriad 
correspondents  upon  the  signs  of  the  political 
atmosphere  may  also  fill  their  appointed  place 
in  a  well-regulated  universe,  if  it  be  only 
that  of  supplying  so  many  more  jack-o'-lan 
terns  to  the  future  historian.  Nay,  the  ob 
servations  on  finance  of  an  M.  C.  whose  sole 
knowledge  of  the  subject  has  been  derived 
from  a  lifelong  success  in  getting  a  living 
out  of  the  public  without  paying  any  equiv 
alent  therefor,  will  perhaps  be  of  interest 
hereafter  to  some  explorer  of  our  cloaca 
maxima,  whenever  it  is  cleansed. 


14        MY    GARDEN    ACQUAINTANCE. 

For  many  years  I  have  been  in  the  habit 
of  noting  down  some  of  the  leading  events 
of  my  embowered  solitude,  such  as  the  com 
ing  of  certain  birds  and  the  like,  —  a  kind 
of  memoires  pour  servir,  after  the  fashion  of 
White,  rather  than  properly  digested  natural 
history.  I  thought  it  not  impossible  that  a 
'few  simple  stories  of  my  winged  acquaint 
ances  might  be  found  entertaining  by  per 
sons  of  kindred  taste. 

There  is  a  common  notion  that  animals 
are, "better  meteorologists  than  men,  and  I 
have  little*  doubt  that  in  immediate  weather- 
wisdom  they  have  the  advantage  of  our  so 
phisticated ''senses  (though  I  suspect  a  sailor 
or  shepherd  would  be  their  match),  but  I 
have  seen  nothing  that^  leads  me  to  believe 
their  minds  capable  of  erecting  the  horoscope 
of  a  whole  season,  and  letting  "us  know  be 
forehand  whether  the  winter  will  be  severe 
or  the  summer  Tainlej^.  I. more,  than  sus 
pect  that  the  clerk  of  the"  weather  himself  - 
does  not  always  know  very  long  in  advance 
whether  he  is  to  draw  an  order  for  hot  or 
cold,  dry  or  moist,  and  the  musquash  is 


MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE.        15 

scarce  likely  to  be  wiser.  I  have  noted  but 
two  days'  difference  in  the  coming  of  the 
song-sparrow  between  a  very  early  and  a 
very  backward  spring.  This  very  year  I 
saw  the  linnets  at  work  thatching,  just  be 
fore  a  snow-storm  which  covered  the  ground 
several  inches  deep  for  a  number  of  days. 
They  struck  work  and  left  us  for  a  while, 
no  doubt  in  search  of  food.  Birds  frequently 
perish  from  sudden  changes  in  our  whimsi 
cal  spring  weather  of  which  they  had  no 
foreboding.  More  than  thirty  years  ago,  a 
cherry-tree,  then  in  full  bloom,  near  my 
window,  was  covered  with  humming-birds 
benumbed  by  a  fall  of  mingled  rain  and 
snow,  which  probably  killed  many  of  them. 
It  should  seem  that  their  coming  was  dated 
by  the  height  of  the  sun,  which  betrays  them 
into  unthrifty  matrimony  ; 

"  So  nature  pricketh  hem  in  their  corages  "  ;Ux 


but  their  going  is  another  matter.  The 
chimney-swallows  leave  us  early,  for  exam 
ple,  apparently  so  soon  as  their  latest  fledg 
lings  are  firm  enough  of  wing  to  attempt  the 


16        MY    GARDEN    ACQUAINTANCE. 

long  rowing-match  that  is  before  them.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  wild-geese  probably  do 
not  leave  the  North  till  they  are  frozen  out, 
for  I  have  heard  their  bugles  sounding  south 
ward  so  Hte  as  the  middle  of  December. 
What 'may  be  called  local  migrations  are 
doubtless  dictated  by  the  chances  of  food. 
I  have  once  been  visited  by  large  nights 
-  of  cross-bills  ;  and  whenever  the  snow  lies 
long  and  deep  on  the  ground,  a  flock  of 
cedar-birds  comes  in  midwinter  to  eat  the 
berries  on  my  hawthorns.  I  have  never 
been  quite  able  to  fathom  the  local,  or  rather 
geographical  partialities  of  birds.  Never  be 
fore  this  summer  (1870)  have  the  king-birds, 
handsomest  of  fly-catchers,  built  in  my  or 
chard  ;  though  I  always  know  where  to  find 
them  within  half  a  mile.  The  rose-breasted 
grosbeak  has  been  a  familiar  bird  in  Brook- 
line  (three  miles  away),  yet  I  never  saw  one 
here  till  last  July,  when  I  found  a  female 
busy  among  my  raspberries  and  surprisingly 
bold.  I  hope  she  was  prospecting  with  a  view 
to  settlement  in  our  garden.  She  seemed, 
on  the  whole,  to  think  well  of  my  fruit,  and 


MY   GARDEN   ACqUAINTANCE.        17 

I  would  gladly  plant  another  bed  if  it  would 
help  to  win  over  so  delightful  a  neighbor. 

The  return  of  the  robin  is  commonly  an 
nounced  by  the  newspapers,  like  that  of 
eminent  or  notorious  people  to  a  watering- 
place,  as  the  first  "authentic  notification  of 
spring.  And  such  his  appearance  in  the 
orchard  and  garden  undoubtedly  is.  But, 
in  spite  of  his  name  of  migratory  thrush,  he 
stays  with  us  all  winter,  and  I  have  seen 
him  when  the  thermometer  marked  15°  be 
low  zero  of  Fahrenheit,  armed  impregnably 
within,  like  Emerson's  Titmouse,  and  as 
cheerful  as  he.  The  robin  has  a  bad  repu 
tation  among  people  who  do  not  value  them 
selves  less  for  being  fond  of  cherries.  There 
is,  I  admit,  a  spice  of  vulgarity  in  him,  and 
his  song  is  rather  of  the  Bloomfield  sort,  too 
largely  ballasted  with  prose.  Ilis,  ethics  are 
of  the  Poor  Richard  school,  anct  the-maitr  : 
chance  which  calls  forth  all  his  energy  is 
altogether  of  the  belly.  He  never  has  those 
fine  intervals  of  lunacy  into  which  his  cous 
ins,  the  catbird  and  the  mavis,  are  apt  to 

•  *i£tx* 

fall.     But  for  a'  that  and  twice  as  muckle  's 


18        MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE. 

,  tf  that,  I  would  not  exchange  him  for  all  the 

JL.«j    VV«>\^     f  •  O 

cherries  that  ever  came  out  of  Asia  Minor. 
With  whatever  faults,  he  has  not  wholly  for 
feited  that  superiority  which  belongs  to  the 
children  of  nature.  He  has  a  finer  taste  in 
fruit  than  could  be  distilled  from  many 
successive  committees  of  the  Horticultural 
Society,  and  he  eats  with  a  relishing  gulp 
not  inferior  to  Dr.  Johnson's.  He  feels  and 
freely  exercises  his  right  of  eminent  domain. 
His  is  the  earliest  mess  of  green  peas  ;  his 
all  the  mulberries  I  had  fancied  mine.  But 
if  he  get  also  the  lion's  share  of  the  rasp 
berries,  he  is  a  great  planter,  and  sows  those 
wild  ones  in  the  woods,  that  solace  the  pe 
destrian  and  give  a  momentary  calm  even 
to  the  jaded  victims  of  the  White  Hills. 
He  keeps  a  strict  eye  over  one's  fruit,  and 
knows  to  a  shade  of  purple  when  your  grapes 
have  cooked  long  enough  in  the  sun.  Dur 
ing  the  severe  drought  a  few  years  ago,  the 
robins  wholly  vanished  from  my  garden.  I 
neither  saw  nor  heard  one  for  three  weeks. 
Meanwhile  a  small  foreign  grape-vine,  rather 
shy  of  bearing,  seemed  to  find  the  dusty  air 


MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE.        19 

k  congenial,  and,  dreaming  perhaps  of  its  sweet 
across  the  sea,  decked  itself  with  a 


score  or  so  of  fair  bunches.  I  watched  them 
from  day  to  day  till  they  should  have  se 
creted  sugar  enough  from  the  sunbeams,  and 
at  last  made  up  my  mind  that  I  would  cele 
brate  my  vintage  the  next  morning.  But 
the  robins  too  had  somehow  kept  note  of 
them.  They  must  have  sent  out  spies,  as  i 
did  the  Jews  into  the  promised  land,  before 
I  was  stirring.  When  I  went  with  my  bas 
ket,  at  least  a  dozen  of  these  winged  vin 
tagers  bustled  out  from  among  the  leaves, 
and  alighting  on  the  nearest  trees  inter 
changed  some  shrill  remarks  about  me  of  a 
derogatory  nature.  They  had  fairly  sacked 
the  vine.  Not  Wellington's  veterans  made 
cleaner  work  of  a  Spanish  town  ;  not  Fed 
erals  or  Confederates  were  ever  more  impar 
tial  in  the  confiscation  of  neutral  chickens. 
I  was  keeping  my  grapes  a  secret  to  surprise 
the  fair  Fidele  with,  but  the  robins  made 
them  a  profounder  secret  to  her  than  I  had 
meant.  The  tattered  remnant  of  a  single 
bunch  was  all  my  harvest-home.  How  pal- 


20        MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE. 

try  it  looked  at  the  bottom  of  my  basket,  - 
as  if  a  humming-bird  had  laid  her  egg  in  an 
eagle's  nest !  I  could  not  help  laughing  ; 
and  the  robins  seemed  to  join  heartily  in  the 
merriment.  There  was  a  native  grape-vine 
close  by,  blue  with  its  less  refined  abun 
dance,  but  ray  cunning  thieves  preferred  the 
foreign  flavor.  Could  I  tax  them  with  want 
of  taste  ? 

The  robins  are  not  good  solo  singers,  but 
their  chorus,  as,  like  primitive  fire- worship 
pers,  they  hail  the  return  of  light  and  warmth 
to  the  world,  is  unrivalled.  There  are  a 
hundred  singing  like  one.  They  are  noisy 
enough  then,  and  sing,  as  poets  should,  with 
no  afterthought.  But  when  they  come  after 
cherries  to  the  tree  near  my  window,  they 
muffle  their  voices,  and  their  faint  pip,  pip, 
pop !  sounds  far  away  at  the  bottom  of  the 
garden,  where  they  know  I  shall  not  suspect 
them  of  robbing  the  great  black-walnut  of 
its  bitter-rinded  store.*  They  are  feathered 

*  The  screech-owl,  whose  cry,  despite  his  ill 
name,  is  one  of  the  sweetest  sounds  in  nature, 
softens  his  voice  in  the  same  way  with  the  most 
beguiling  mockery  of  distance. 


MY    GARDEN    ACQUAINTANCE.        21 

xW~. 

Pecksniffs,  to  be  sure,  but  then  how  brightly 
their  breasts,  that  look  rather  shabby  in  the 
sunlight,  shine  in  a  rainy  day  against  the 
dark  green  of  the  fringe-tree  !  After  they 
have  pinched  and  shaken  all  the  life  out 
of  an  earthworm,  as  Italian  cooks  pound  all 
the  spirit  out  of  a  steak,  and  then  gulped 
him,  they  stand  up  in  honest  self-confidence, 
expand  their  red  waistcoats  with  the  virtu 
ous  air  of  a  lobby  member,  and  outface  you 
with  an  eye  that  calmly  challenges  inquiry. 
"  Do  I  look  like  a  bird  that  knows  the  flavor 
of  raw  vermin  ?  I  throw  myself  upon  a  jury 
of  my  peers.  Ask  any  robiij  if  hg  ever  ate 
anything  less  ascetic  than  the  frugal  berry 
of  the  jumper,  and  he  will  answer  that  his 
vow  forbids  him."  Can  such  an  open  bosom 
cover  such  depravity  ?  Alas,  yes  !  I  have 
no  doubt  his  breast  was  redder  at  that  very 
moment  with  the  blood  of  my  raspberries. 
On  the  whole,  he  is  a  doubtful  friend  in  the 
garden.  He  makes  his  dessert  of  all  kinds 
of  berries,  and  is  not  averse  iroin  early  pears. 
But  when  we  remember  how  omnivorous  he 
is,  eating  his  own  weight  in  an  incredibly 


22        MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE. 

short  time,  and  that  Nature  seems  exhaust- 
less  in  her  invention  of  new  insects  hostile 
to  vegetation,  perhaps  we  may  reckon  that  he 
does  more  good  than  harm.  For  my  own 
part,  I  would  rather  have  his  cheerfulness 
and  kind  neighborhood  than  many  berries. 

For  his  cousin,  the  catbird,  I  have  a  still 
warmer  regard.  Always  a  good  singer,  he 
sometimes  nearly  equals  the  brown  thrush, 
and  has  the  merit  of  keeping  up  his  music 
later  in  the  evening  than  any  bird  of  my 
familiar  acquaintance.  Ever  since  I  can 

Z"v?to 

remember,  a  pair  of  them  have  built  in  a 
gigantic  syringa,  near  our  front  door,  and  I 
have  known  the  male  to  sing  almost  un 
interruptedly  during  the  evenings  of  early 
summer  till  twilight  duskened  into  dark. 
They  differ  greatly  in  vocal  talent,  but  all 
have  a  delightful  way  of  crooning  over,  and, 
as  it  were,  rehearsing  their  song  in  an  un 
dertone,  which  makes  their  nearness  always 
unobtrusive.  Though  there  is  the  most  trust 
worthy  witness  to  the  imitative  propensity 
of  this  bird,  I  have  only  once,  during  an  in 
timacy  of  more  than  forty  years,  heard  him 


MY    GA11DEN    ACQUAINTANCE.        23 

indulge  it.  In  that  case,  the  imitation  was 
by  no  means  so  close  as  to  deceive,  but  a 
free  reproduction  of  the  notes  of  some  other 
birds,  especially  of  the  oriole,  as  a  kind  of 
variation  in  his  own  song.  The  catbird  is  as 
shy  as  the  robin  is  vulgarly  familiar.  Only 
when  his  nest  or  his  fledglings  are  approached 
does  he  become  noisy  andfimost  aggressive. 
I  have,  kftown  him  to  station  his  young  in 
a  tmcK  corne^bush  on  the  edge  of  the  rasp 
berry-bed,  after  the  fruit  began  to  ripen,  and 
feed  them  there  for  a  week  or  more.  In  such 
cases  he  shows  none  of  that  conscious  guilt 
which  makes  the  robin  contemptible.  On 
the  contrary,  he  will  maintain  his  post  in 
the  thicket,  and  sharply  scold  the  intruder 
who  ventures  to  steal  his  berries.  After  all, 
his  claim  is  only  for  tithes,  while  the  robin 
will  ]g££  your  entire  crop  if  he  -g^  a  chance. 
DrTwatts's  statement  that  "  birds  in  their 
little  nests  agree,"  like  too  many  others  in 
tended  to  form  the  infant  mind,  is  very  far 
from  being  true.  On  the  contrary,  the  most 
peaceful  relation  of  the  different  species  to 
each  other  is  that  oi  armed  neutrality.  They 


2  MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE. 

are  very  jealous  of  neighbors.  A  few  years 
ago,  I  was  much  interested  in  the  house 
building  of  a  pair  of  summer  yellow-birds. 
They  had  chosen  a  very  pretty  site  near  the 
top  of  a  tall  white  lilac,  within  easy  eye-shot 
of  a  chamber  window.  A  very  pleasant  thing 
it  was  to  see  their  little  home  growing  with 
mutual  help,  to  watch  their  industrious  skill 
interrupted  only  by  little  flirts  and  snatches 
of  endearment,  frugally  cut  short  by  the 
common-sense  of  the  tiny  housewife.  They 
had  brought  their  work  nearly  to  an  end, 
and  had  already  begun  to  line  it  with  fern- 
down,  the  gathering  of  which  demanded 
more  distant  journeys  and  longer  absences. 
But,  alas  !  the  syringa,  immemorial  manor 
of  the  catbirds,  was  not  more  than  twenty, 
feet  away,  and  these  "  giddy  neighbors  "  had,v' 
as  it  appeared,  been  all  along  jealously  watch 
ful,  though  silent,  witnesses  of  what  they 
deemed  an  intrusion  of  squatters.  No  sooner 
were  the  pretty  mates  fairly  gone  for  a  new 
load  of  lining,  than 

"  To  their  unguarded  nest  these  weasel  Scots 
Came  stealing." 


MY    GARDEN    ACQUAINTANCE.        25 

Silently  they  flew  back  and  forth,  each  giv 
ing  a  vengeful  dab  at  the  nest  in  passing. 
They  did  not  fall-to  and  deliberately  de 
stroy  it,  for  they  might  have  been  caught 
at  their  mischief.  As  it  was,  whenever  the 
yellow-birds  came  back,  their  enemies  were 
hidden  in  their  own  sight-proof  bush.  Sev 
eral  times  their  unconscious  victims  repaired 
damages,  but  at  length,  after  counsel  taken 
together,  they  gave  it  lip.  Perhaps,  like 
other  unlettered  folk,  they  came  to  the  con 
clusion  that  the  Devil  was  in  it,  and  yielded 
to  the  invisible  persecutions  of  witchcraft. 

The  robins,  by  constant  attacks  and  an 
noyances,  have  succeeded  in  driving  off  the 
blue-jays  who  used  to  build  in  our  pines, 
their  gay  colors  and  quaint  noisy  ways  mak 
ing  them  welcome  and  amusing  neighbors. 
I  once  had  the  chance  of  doing  a  kindness 
to  a  household  of  them,  which  they  received 
with  very  friendly  condescension.  I  had  had 
my  eye  for  some  time  upon  a  nest,  and  was 
puzzled  by  a  constant  fluttering  of  what 
seemed  full-grown  wings  in  it  whenever  I 
drew  nigh.  At  last  I  climbed  the  tree,  in 


26        MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE. 

spite  of  angry  protests  from  the  old  "birds 
against  my  intrusion.  The  mystery  had  a 
very  simple  solution.  In  building  the  nest, 
a  long  piece  of  packthread  had  been  some 
what  loosely  woven  in.  Three  of  the  young 
had  contrived  to  entangle  themselves  in  it, 
and  had  become  full-grown  without  being 
able  to  launch  themselves  upon  the  air. 
One  was  unharmed ;  another  had  so  tightly 
twisted  the  cord  about  its  shank  that  one 
foot  wTas  curled  up  and  seemed  paralyzed  ; 
the  third,  in  its  struggles  to  escape,  had 
sawn  through  the  flesh  of  the  thigh  and  so 
much  harmed  itself  that  I  thought  it  hu 
mane  to  put  an  end  to  its  misery.  •  When  I 
took  out  my  knife  to  cut  their  hempen  bonds, 
the  heads  of  the  family  seemed  to  divine 
my  friendly  intent.  Suddenly  ceasing  their 
cries  and  threats,  they  perched  quietly  with 
in  reach  of  my  hand,  and  watched  me  in  my 
work  of  manumission.  This,  owing  to  the 
fluttering  terror  "of  the  prisoners,  was  an 
affair  of  some  delicacy ;  but  erelong  I  was 
rewarded  by  seeing  one  of  them  fly  away  to 
a  neighboring  tree,  while  the  cripple,  making 


MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE.        27 

a  parachute  of  his  wings,  came  lightly  to  the 
ground,  and  hopped  off  as  well  as  he  could 
with  one  leg,  obsequiously  waited  on  by  his 
elders.  A  week  later  I  had  the  satisfaction 
of  meeting  him  in  the  pine-walk,  in  good 
spirits,  and  already  so  far  recovered  as  to 
be  able  to  balance  himself  with  the  lame 
foot.  I  have  no  doubt  that  in  his  old  age 
he  accounted  for  his  lameness  by  some  hand 
some  story  of  a  wound  received  at  the  fa 
mous  Battle  of  the  Pines,  when  our  tribe, 
overcome  by  numbers,  was  driven  from  its 
ancient  camping-ground.  Of  late  years  the 
jays  have  visited  us  only  at  intervals  ;  and 
in  winter  their  bright  plumage,  set  off  by 
the  snow,  and  their  cheerful  cry,  are  espe 
cially  welcome.  They  would  have  furnished 
^Esop  with  a  fable,  for  the  feathered  crest  in 
which  they  seem  to  take  so  much  satisfac 
tion  is  often  their  fatal  snare.  Country  boys 
make  a  hole  with  their  finger  in  the  snow- 
crust  just  large  enough  to  admit  the  jay's 
head,  and,  hollowing  it  out  somewhat  be 
neath,  bait  it  with  a  few  kernels  of  corn. 
The  crest  slips  easily  into  the  trap,  but  re- 


28        MY    GARDEN    ACQUAINTANCE.^ 

^iH»  *  4 

fuses  to  be  pulled  out  again,  and  he  Vho 
came  to  feast  remains  a  pre^xu^vv^f  A^| 
Twice  have  the  crow-blackbirds  attempted 

a  settlement  in  my  pines,  and  twice  have  the 

i-  ,        T    .  .   T,      f  Vw -•  cr  &<.$»   -O,r^ 

robins,  who  claim  a  right  of  pre-emp^[OTi,^so 

successfully  played  the  part  of  border-ruf 
fians  as  to  drive  them  away,  —  to  my  great 
regret,  for  they  are  the  best  substitute  we 
have  for  rooks.  At  Shady  Hill  (now,  alas  ! 
empty  of  its  so  long-loved  household)  they 
build  by  hundreds,  and  nothing  can  be  more 
cheery  than  their  creaking  clatter  (like  a 
convention  of  old-fashioned  tavern-signs)  as 
they  gather  at  evening  to  debate  in  mass 
meeting  their  windy  politics,  or  to  gossip 
at  their  tent-doors  over  the  events  of  the 
day.  Their  port  is  grave,  and  their  stalk 
across  the  turf  as  martial  as  that  of  a  second- 
rate  ghost  in  Hamlet.  They  never  meddled 
with  my  corn,  so  far  as  I  could  discover. 
J  For  a  few  years  I  had  crows,  but  their 
"nests  are  an  irresistible  bait  for  boys,  and 
their  settlement  was  broken  up.  They  grew 
so  wonted  as  to  throw  off  a  great  part  of 
their  shyness,  and  to  tolerate  my  near  ap- 


MY    GARDEN    ACQUAINTANCE.        2 

proach.  One  very  hot  day  I  stood  for  some 
time  within  twenty  feet  of  a  mother  and 
three  children,  who  sat  on  an  elm  bough 
over  my  head,  gasping  in  the  sultry  air,  and 
holding  their  wings  half-spread  for  coolness. 
All  birds  during  the  pairing  season  become 
more  or  less  sentimental,  and  murmur  soft 
nothings  in  a  tone  very  unlike  the  grinding- 
organ  repetition  and  loudness  of  their  ha 
bitual  song.  The  crow  is  very  comical  as  a 
lover,  and  to  hear  him  trying  to  soften  his 
croak  to  the  proper  Saint  treux" standard, 
has  something  the  effect  of  a  Mississippi 
boatman  quoting  Tennyson.  Yet  there  are 
few  things  to  my  ear  more  melodious  than 
his  caw  of  a  clear  winter  morning  as  it  drops 
to  you  filtered  through  five  hundred  fathoms 
of  crisp  blue  air.  The  hostility  of  all  smaller 
birds  makes  the  moral  character  of  the  crow, 
for  all  his  deaconlike  demeanor  and  garb, 
somewhat  questionable.  He  could  never 
sally  forth  without  insult.  The  golden  rob 
ins,  especially,  would  chase  him  as  far  as  I 
could  follow  with  my  eye,  making  him  duck 
clumsily  to  avoid  their  importunate  bills.  I 


30        MY    GARDEN    ACQUAINTANCE. 

do  not  believe,  however,  that  he  robbed  any 
nests  hereabouts,  for  the  refuse  of  the  gas 
works,  which,  in  our  free-and-easy  commu 
nity,  is  allowed  to  poison  the  river,  supplied 
him  with  dead  ale  wives  in  abundance.  I 
used  to  watch  him  making  his  periodical 
visits  to  the  salt-marshes  and  coming  back 
with  a  fish  in  his  beak  to  his  young  savages, 
who,  no  doubt,  like  it  in,  that  condition 

which  majte,s  it  'savory  to  the  Kanakas  and 

.  tC'  \*\  r  %<f&  .  f 

other  corvine  races  of  men. 

Orioles  are  in  great  plenty  with  me.  I 
have  seen  seven  males  flashing  about  the 
garden  at  once.  A  merry  crew  of  them 
swing  their  hammocks  from  the  pendulous 
boughs.  During  one  of  these  latter  years, 
when  the  canker-worms  stripped  our  elms 
as  bare  as  winter,  these  birds  went  to  the 
trouble  of  rebuilding  their  unroofed  nests, 
and  chose  for  the  purpose  trees  which  are 
safe  from  those  swarming  vandals,  such  as 
the  ash  and  the  button-wood.  One  year  a 
pair  (disturbed,  I  suppose,  elsewhere)  built 
a  second  nest  in  an  elm,  within  a  few  yards 
of  the  house.  My  friend,  Edward  E.  Hale, 


MY    GARDEN    ACQUAINTANCE.        31 

told  me  once  that  the  oriole  rejected  from 
hjs,  web  all  strands  of  brilliant  color,  and  I 
thought  it  a  striking  example  of  that  in 
stinct  of  concealment  noticeable  in  many 
birds,  though  it  should  seem  in  this  instance 
that  the  nest  was  amply  protected^  by  its 
position)  from  all  marauders  but  owls  and 
squirrels.  Last  year,  however,  I  had  the 
fullest  proof  that  Mr.  Hale  was  mistaken. 
A  pair  of  orioles  built  on  the  lowest  trailer 
of  a  weeping  elm,  which  hung  within  ten 
feet  of  our  drawing-room  window,  and  so 
low  that  I  could  reach  it  from  the  ground. 
The  nest  was  wholly  woven  and  felted  with 
ravellings  of  woollen  carpet  in  which  scarlet 
predominated.  Would  the  same  thing  have 
happened  in  the  woods  ?  Or  did  the  near 
ness  of  a  human  dwelling  perhaps  give  the 
birds  a  greater  feeling  of  security  ?  They 
are  very  bold,  by  the  way,  in  quest  of  cord 
age,  and  I  have  often  watched  them  strip 
ping  the  fibrous  bark  from  a  honeysuckle 
growing  over  the  very  door.  But,  indeed, 
all  my  birds  look  upon  me  as  if  I  were  a 
mere  tenant  at  will,  and  they  were  land- 


32        MY    GA11DEN    ACQUAINTANCE. 

lords.  .With  shame  I  confess  it,  I  have  been 
bullied  even  by  a  humming-bird.  This 
spring,  as  I  was  cleansing  a  pear-tree  of  its 
lichens,  one  of  these  little  zigzagging  blurs 
came  purring  toward  me,  couching  his  long 
bill  like  a  lance,  his  throat  sparkling  with 
angry  fire,  to  warn  me  off  from  a  Missouri- 
currant  whose  honey  he.  was  sipping.  And 
many  a  time  he  has  driven  me  out  of  a 
flower-bed.  This  summer,  by  the  way,  a 
pair  of  these  winged  emeralds  fastened  their 
mossy  acorn-cup  upon  a  bough  of  the  same 
elm  which  the  orioles  had  enlivened  the 
year  before.  We  watched  all  their  proceed 
ings  from  the  window  through  an  opera- 
glass,  and  saw  their  two  nestlings  grow  from 
black  needles  with  a  tuft  of  down  at  the 
lower  end,  till  they  whirled  away  on  their 
first  short  experimental  flights.  They  be 
came  strong  of  wing  in  a  surprisingly  short 
time,  and  I  never  saw  them  or  the  male  bird 
after,  though  the  female  was  regular  as  usual 
in  her  visits  to  our  petunias  and  verbenas. 
I  do  not  think  it  ground  enough  for  a  gen 
eralization,  but  in  the  many  times  when  I 


MY    GAftDEN   ACQUAINTANCE.        33 

watched  the  old  birds  feeding  their  young, 
the  mother  always  alighted,  while  the  father 
as  uniformly  remained  upon  the  wing. 

The  bobolinks  are  generally  chance  visit 
ors,  tinkling  through  the  garden  in  blos 
soming-time,  but  this  year,  owing  to  the 
long  rains  early  in  the  season,  their  favorite 
meadows  were  flooded,  and  they  were  driven 
to  the  upland.  So  I  had  a  pair  of  them 
domiciled  in  my  grass-field.  The  male  used 
to  perch  in  an  apple-tree,  then  in  full  bloom, 
and,  while  I  stood  perfectly  still  close  by, 
he  would  circle  away,  quivering  round  the 
entire  field  of  five  acres,  with  no  break  in 
his  song,  and  settle  down  again  among  the 
blossoms,  to  be  hurried  away  almost  imme 
diately  by  a  new  rapture  of  music.  5e  had  the 

%.  A**  '»Y*v*^ -7*1^5.  frty"-^  ** 

volubility  of  an  Italian  charlatan  at  a  fair, ' 

and,  like  him,  appeared  to  be  proclaiming  the 
merits  of  some  quack   remedy.     CKSu^Moi^ 
opodeldoc  -  try  -Doctor  -  Lincoln's -opodeldoc  !  he  l 
seemed  to  repeat  over  and  over  again,  with 
a   rapidity  that  i^ould.,  have   distanced   the 
deftest-tongued  Figaro  that  ever  rattled.     I 
remember    Count    Gurowski    saying    once, 


34        MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE. 

with  that  easy  superiority  of  knowledge 
about  this  country  which  is  the  monopoly 
of  foreigners,  that  we  had  no  singing-birds ! 
Well,  well,  Mr.  Hepworth  Dixon  has  found 
the  typical  America  in  Oneida  and  Salt 
Lake  City.  Of  course,  an  intelligent  Euro 
pean  is  the  best  judge  of  these  matters. 
The  truth  is  there  are  more  singing-birds 
in  Europe  because  there  are  fewer  forests. 
These  songsters  love  the  neighborhood  of 
man  because  hawks  and  owls  are  rarer, 
while  their  own  food  is  more  abundant. 
Most  people  seem  to  think,  rjhe  more  trees, 
the  more  birds.  Even  Chateaubriand,  who 
first  tried  the  primitive-forest-cure,  and 
whose  description  of  the  wilderness  in  its 
imaginative  effects  is  unmatched,  fancies  the 
"people  of  the  air  singing  their  hymns  to 
him."  So  far  as  my  own  observation  goes, 
the  farther  one  penetrates  the  sombre  soli 
tudes  of  the  woods,  the  more  seldom  does 
he  hear  the.  voice  of  any  singing-bird.  In 
spite  of  Chateaubriand's  minuteness  of  de 
tail,  in  spite  of  that  marvellous  reverbera 
tion  of  the  decrepit  tree  falling  of  its  own 


MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE.        35 

weight,  which,  he  was  the  first  to  notice,  I 
cannot  help  doubting  whether  he  made  his 
way  very  deep  into  the  wilderness.  At  any 
rate,  in  a  letter  to  FoniarieSj  written  in  1804, 
he  speaks  of  mes  cl\evaux  paissant  d  quelque 
distance.  To  be  sure  Chateaubriand  was 
apt  to  mount  the  mgh  horse,  and  this  may 
have  been  but  an  afterthought  of  the  grand 
seigneur,  but  certainly  one  would  not  make 
much  headway  on  horseback  toward  the 
druid  fastnesses  of  the  primeval  pine. 

The  bobolinks  build  in  considerable  num 
bers  in  a  meadow  within  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
of  us.  A  houseless  lane  passes  through  the 
midst  of  their  camp,  and  in  clear  westerly 
weather,  at  the  right  season,  one  may  hear  a 
score  of  them  singing  at  once.  When  they 
are  breeding,  if  I  chance  to  pass,  one  of  the 
male  birds  always  accompanies  me  like  a 
constable,  flitting  from  post  to  post  of  the 
rail-fence,  with  a  short  note  of  reproof  con 
tinually  repeated,  till  I  am  fairly  out  of  the 
neighborhood.  Then  he  will  swing  away 
into  the  air  and  run  down  the  wind,  gurg 
ling  music  without  stint  over  the  unheeding 


MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE. 

tussocks  of  meadow-grass  and  dark  clumps 
of  bulrushes  that  mark  his  domain. 

We  have  no  bird  whose  song  will  match 
the  nightingale's  in  compass,  none  whose 
note  is  so  rich  as  that  of  the  European 
blackbird ;  but  for  mere  rapture  I  have 
never  heard  the  bobolink's  rival.  But  his 
opera-season  is  a  short  one.  The  ground 
and  tree  sparrows  are  our  most  constant 
performers.  It  is  now  late  in  August,  and 
one  of  the  latter  sings  every  day  and  all  day 
long  in  the  garden.  Till  within  a  fortnight, 
a  pair  of  indigo-birds  would  keep  up  their 
lively  duo  for  an  hour  together.  While  I 
write,  I  hear  an  oriole  gay  as  in  June,  and 
the  plaintive  may-be  of  the  goldfinch  tells 
me  he  is  stealing  my  lettuce-seeds.  I  know 
not  what  the  experience  of  others  may  have 
been,  but  the  only  bird  I  have  ever  heard 
sing  in  the  night  has  been  the  chip-bird.  I 
should  say  he  sang  about  as  often  during  the 
darkness  as  cocks  crow.  One  can  hardly 
help  fancying  that  he  sings  in  his  dreams. 

"Father  of  light,  what  sunnie  seed, 
What  glance  of  day  hast  tliou  confined 


MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE.        37 

Into  this  bird  ?    To  all  the  breed 
This  busie  ray  thou  hast  assigned  ; 
Their  magnetism  works  all  night, 
And  dreams  of  Paradise  and  light." 

On  second  thought,  I  remember  to  have 
heard  the  cuckoo  strike  the  hours  nearly  all 
night  with  the  regularity  of  a  Swiss  clock. 

The  dead  limbs  of  our  elms,  which  I  spare 
to  that  end,  bring  us  the  flicker  every  sum 
mer,  and  almost  daily  I  hear  his  wild  scream 
and  laugh  close  at  hand,  himself  invisible. 
He  is  a  shy  bird,  but  a  few  days  ago  I  had 
the  satisfaction  of  studying  him  through  the 
blinds  as  he  sat  on  a  tree  within  a  few  feet 
of  me.  Seen  so  near  and  at  rest,  he  makes 
good  his  claim  to  the  title  of  pigeon- wood 
pecker.  Lumberers  have  a  notion  that  he 
is  harmful  to  timber,  digging  little  holes 
through  the  bark  to  encourage  the  settle 
ment  of  insects.  The  regular  rings  of  such 
perforations  which  one  may  see  in  almost 
any  apple-orchard  seem  to  give  some  proba 
bility  to  this  theory.  Almost  every  season 
a  solitary  quail  visits  us,  and,  unseen  among 
the  currant-bushes,  calls  Bob  TVhite,  Bob 


38        MY    GARDEN    ACQUAINTANCE. 

TPTiite,  as  if  he  were  playing  at  hide-and- 
seek  with  that  imaginary  being.  A  rarer 
visitant  is  the  turtle-dove,  whose  pleasant 
coo  (something  like  the  muffled  crow  of 
a  cock  from  a  coop  covered  with  snow)  I 
have  sometimes  heard,  and  whom  I  once 
had  the  good  luck  to  see  close  by  me  in  the 
mulberry-tree.  The  wild-pigeon,  once  nu 
merous,  I  have  not  seen  for  many  years.* 
Of  savage  birds,  a  hen-hawk  now  and  then 
quarters  himself  upon  us  for  a  few  days, 
sitting  sluggish  in  a  tree  after  a  surfeit  of 
poultry.  One  of  them  once  offered  me  a 
near  shot\j£rom  my  study- window  pne  drizzly 
dayyor  several  hours.  But  it  was  Sunday, 
and  I  gave  him  the  benefit  of  its  gracious 
truce  of  God. 

Certain  birds  have  disappeared  from  our 
neighborhood  within  my  memory.  I  re 
member  when  the  whippoorwill  could  be 
rd  in  Sweet  Auburn.  The  night-hawk, 
'once  common,  is  now  rare.  The  brOwn 
thrushjhas  moved  farther  up  country.  For 

*  They  made  their  appearance  again  this  sum 
mer  (1870). 


MY    GARDEN    ACQUAINTANCE.        39 

t  years  I  have  not  seen  or  heard  any  of  the 
(il  larger  owls,  whose  hooting  was  one  of  my 
boyish  terrors.  The  cliff-swallow,  strange 
emigrant,  that  eastward  takes  his  way,  has 
come  and  gone  again  in  my  time.  The 
bank-swallows,  wellnigh  innumerable  during 
my  boyhood,  no  longer  frequent  the  crumbly 
cliff  of  the  gravel-pit  by  the  river..  The 
barn-swallows,  which  once  swarmed  in  our 
barn,  flashing  through  the  dusty  sun-streaks 
of  the  mow,  have  been  gone  these  many 
years.  My  father  would  lead  me  out  to  see 
them  gather  on  the  roof,  and  take  counsel 
before  their  yearly  migration,  as  Mr.  White 
used  to  see  them  at  Selborne.  Eljs^^/ugfic.es  ! 
Thank  fortune,  the  swift  still  glues  his  nest, 
and  rolls  his  distant  thunders  night  and  day 
in  the  wide-throated  chimneys,  still  sprinkles 
the  evening  air  with  his  merry  twittering. 
The  populous  tieronisr  in  Fresh  Pond  mead^ 
ows  has  been  wellnigh  broken  up,  but  still 
a  pair  or  two  haunt  the  old  home,  as  th<t 
gypsies  of  EHajigowan  'fheif  "ruined  huts, 
and  every  evening  fly  over  us  riverwards, 
clearing  their  throats  with  a  hoarse  hawk 


40        MY    GA11DEN    ACqiJAINTANCE. 


as  they  go,  and,  in  cloudy  weather,  scarce 
higher  than  the  tops  of  the  chimneys.  Some 
times  I  have  known  one  to  alight  in  one  of 
our  trees,  though  for  what  purpose  I  never 
could  divine.  Kingfishers  have  sometimes 
puzzled  me  in  the  same  way,  perched  at 
high  noon  in  a  pine,  springing  their  watch 
man's  rattle  when  they  flitted  away  from  my 
curiosity,  and  seeming  to  shove  their  top- 
heavy  heads  along  as  a  man  does  a  wheel 
barrow. 

Some  birds  have  left  us,  I  suppose,  because 
the  country  is  growing  less  wild.  I  once 
found  a  summer  duck's  nest  within  quartejr/^ 
of  a  mile  of  our  house,  but  such  .a  trouvaille 
would  be  impossible  now  as  KidcFs  treasure. 
And  yet  the  mere  taming  of  the  lieighbor- 
hood  does  not  quite  satisfy  me  as  an  expla 
nation.  Twenty  years  ago,  on  my  way  to 
bathe  in  the  river,  I  saw  every  day  a  brace 
of  woodcock,  on  the  miry  edge  of  a  spring 
within  a  few  rods  of  a  house,  and  constantly 
visited  by  thirsty  cows.  There  was  no  growth 
of  any  kind  to  conceal  them,  and  yet  these 
ordinarily  shy  birds  were  almost  as  indiffer- 


MY   GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE.        41 

ent  to  my  passing  as  common  poultry  would 
have  been.     Since  bird-nesting  has  become^ 
scientific,  and  dignified  itself  as' oology,  that, 


no  doubt,  is  partly  to  blame  for  some  of 
losses.  But  some  old  friends  are  constant. 
Wilson's  thrush  comes  every  year  to  remind 
me  of  that  most  poetic  of  6riiith<ologi$ts.1  '*&e 
flits  before  me  through  the  pine-walk  like 
the  very  genius  of  solitude.  A  pair  of  pe- 
wees  have  built  immemorially  on  a  jutting 
brick  in  the  arched  entrance  to  the  ice-house. 
Always  on  the  same  brick,  and  never  more 
than  a  single  pair,  though  two  broods  of  five 
each  are  raised  there  every  summer.  How 
do  they  settle  their  claim  to  the  homestead  ? 
By  what  right  of  primogeniture  1  Once  the 
children  of  a  man  employed  about  the  place 
oologized  the  nest,  and  the  pewees  left  us  for 
a  year  or  two.  I  felt  towards  those  boys  as 
the  messmates  of  the  Ancient  Mariner  did 
towards  him  after  he  had  shot  the  albatross. 
But  the  pewees  came  back  at  last,  and  one 
of  them  is  now  on  his  wonted  perch,  so  near 
my  window  that  I  can  hear  the  click  of  his 
bill  as  he  snaps  a  fly  on  the  wing  with 


42        MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE. 

._••*,/.  K*  M    '     -      i       x*"-,    tl  /Q^nZX/\n*tAi .  'J^   &  *<.*.t  j 


the  unerring  precision  a  stately  'trasteven^a 
shows  in  the  capture  of  her  smaller  deer, 
The  pewee  is  the  first  bird  to  ]3ipe  up  in  the 
morning  ;  and  during  the  early  'summer  he 
preludes  his  mattttinal  ejaculation  of  peicee 
with  a  slender  whistle,  unheard  at  any  other 
time.  He  saddens  with  the  season,  and,  as 
summer  declines,  he  changes  his  note  to  eheu, 
pewee !  as  if  in  lamentation.  Jfjjid  he  been 
an  Italian  bird,  Uvid  would  have  had  a 
plaintive  tale  to  tell  about  him.  He  is  so 
familiar  as  o^ten  to  pursue  a  fly  through  the 
open  window  into  my  library. 

There  is  something  inexpressibly  dear  to 
me  in  these  old  friendships  of  a  lifetime. 
There  is  scarce  a  tre^of  mine  but  has  had, 
at  some  time  or  other,  a  happy  homestead 
among  its  boughs,  to  which.  I  cannot  say, 

"  Many  light  hearts  and  wings, 
Which  now  be  dead,  lodged  in  thy  living  bowers. " 

My  walk  under  the  pines  would  lose  half 
its  summer  charm  were  I  to  miss  that  shy 
1  'ahckorifepihe  Wilson's  thrush,  nor  hear  in 
haying-time  the  metallic  ring  of  his  song, 


WV    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE.        43 

that  justifies  his  rustic  name  of  scythe-whet. 
I  protect  my  game  as  jealously  as  an  English 
squire.  If  anybody  had  oologized  a  certain 
cuckoo's  nest  I  know  of  (I  have  a  pair  in 
my  garden  every  year),  it  would  have  left 
me  a  sore  place  in  my  mind  for  weeks.  I 
love  to  bring  these  aborigines  back  to  the 
mansuetiicle^they  showed  to  the  early  voy 
agers,  and  before  (forgive  the  involuntary 
pun)  they  had  grown  accustomed  to  man, 
and  knew  his  savage  ways.  And  they  repay 
your  kindness  with  a  sweet  familiarity  too 
delicate  ever  to  breed  contempt.  I  have 
made  a  Penn-treaty  with  them,  preferring 
that  to  the  Puritan  way  with  the  natives, 
which  converted  them  to  a  little  Hebraism 
and  a  great  deal  of  Mecfforct  rum.  If  they 
will  not  come  near  enough  to  me  (as  most 
of  them  will),  I  bring  them  close  with  an 
opera-glass,  —  a  much  better  weapon  than  a 
gun.  I  would  not,  if  I  could,  convert  them 
from  their  pretty  pagan  ways.  The  only  one 
I  sometimes  have  savage  doubts  about  is  the 
red  squirrel.  I  think  he  oologizes.  I  know 
he  eats  cherries  (we  counted  five  of  them  at- 

~ 


44        MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE. 

one  time  in  a  single  tree,  the  stones  pattering 
down  like  the  sparse  hail  that  preludes  a 
storm),  and  that  he  gnaws  off  the  small  end 
of  pears  to  get  at  the  seeds.  He  steals  the 
corn  from  under  the  noses  of  my  poultry. 
But  what  would  you  have  1  He  will  come 
down  upon  the  limb  of  the  tree  I  am  lying 
under  till  he  is  within  a  yard  of  me.  He 
and  his  mate  will  scurry  up  and  down  the 
great  black-walnut  for  my  diversion,  chat 
tering  like  monkeys.  Can  I  sign  his  death- 
warrant  who  has  tolerated  me  about  his 
grounds  so  long?  Not  I.  Let  them  steal, 
and  welcome.  I  am  sure  I  should,  had  I 
had  the  same  bringing  up  and  the  same 
temptation.  As  for  the  birds,  I  do  not  be 
lieve  there  is  one  of  them  but  does  more  good 
than  harm  ;  and  of  how  many  featherless 
bipeds  can  this  be  said  ? 


A  GOOD  WORD  FOR  WINTER. 


EN  scarcely  know  how  beautiful,  fire 
is,"  says  Shelley  ;  and  I  am  apt  to 
think  there  are  a  good  many  other 
things  concerning  which  their  knowledge 
might  be  largely  increased  without  becom 
ing  burdensome.  Nor  are  they  altogether 
reluctant  to  be  taught,  —  not  so  reluctant, 
perhaps,  as  unable,  —  and  education  is  sure 
to  find  one  fulcrum  ready  to  her  hand  by 
which  to  get  a  purchase  on  them.  For  most 
of  us,  I  have  noticed^  jjre  not  without  an 
amiable  willingness  fo  assist'^any  spectacle 
or  entertainment  (loosely  so  called)  for  which 
no  fee  is  charged  at  the  door.  If  special 
tickets  are  sent  us,  another  element  of  pleas 
ure  is  added  in  a  sense  of  privilege  and  pre- 


46        A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER. 

* 

eminence  (pitiably  scarce  in  a  democracy)  so 
deeply  rooted  in  human  nature  that  I  have 
seen  people  take  a  strange  satisfaction  in 
being  near  of  kin  to  the  mute  chief  person 
age  in  a  funeral.  It  gave  them  a  moment's 
advantage  over  the  rest  of  us  whose  grief 
was  rated  at  a  lower  place  in  the  procession. 
But  the  words  "  admission  free "  at  the 
bottom  of  a  handbill,  though  holding  out  no 
bait  of  inequality,  have  yet  a  singular  charm 
for  many  minds,  especially  in  the  country. 
There  is  something  touching  in  the  con 
stancy  with  which  men  attend  free  lectures, 
and  in  the  honest  patience  with  which  they 
listen  tojthem.  He  who  pays  may  yawn  or 
shift  testily  in  his  seat,  or  even  go  out  with 
an  awful  reverberation  of  criticism,  for  he  has 
bought  the  right  to  do  any  or  all  of  these 
and  paid  for  it.  But  gratuitous  hearers  are 
anaesthetized  to  suffering  by  a  sense  of  virtue. 
They  are  performing  perhaps  the  noblest, 
as  it  is  one  of  the  most  difficult,  of  human 
functions  in  getting  Something  (no  matter 
how  small)  for  Nothing.  They  are  not  pes 
tered  by  the  awful  duty  of  securing  their 


A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER.        47 

money's  worth.  They  are  wasting  time,  to 
do  which  elegantly  and  without  lassitude  is 
the  highest  achievement  of  civilization.  If 
they  are  cheated,  it  is,  at  worst,  only  of  a 
superfluous  hour  which  was  rotting  on  their 
hands.  Not  only  is  mere  amusement  made 
more  piquant,  b'iit  instruction  more  palata 
ble,  by  this  universally  relished  sauce  of 
gratuity.  And  if  the  philosophic  observer 
finds  an  object  .of  agreeable  contemplation 
in  the'  audience,  as  they  listen  to  a  discourse 
on  the  probability  of  making  missionaries 
go  down  better  with  the  Feejee- Islanders  by 
balancing  the  *hymn-book  in  one  pocket 
with  a  bottle  of  Worcestershire  in  the  other, 
or  to  a  plea  for  arming  the  female  gorilla 
with  the  ballot,  he  also  takes  a  friendly  in 
terest  in  the  lecturer,  and  admires  the  wise 
economy  of  Nature  who  thus  contrives  an 
ample  field  of  honest  labor  for  her  bores. 
Even  when  the  insidious  hat  is  passed  round 
after  one  of  these  eleemosynary  feasts,  the 
relish  is  but  heightened"by  a  conscientious 
refusal  to  disturb  the  satisfaction's  complete 
ness  with  the  rattle  of  a  single  contributory 


48        A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER. 

penny.  So  firmly  persuaded  am  I  of  this 
gratis-instinct  in.  our  common  humanity, 
that  I  believe  I  could  fill  a  house  by  adver 
tising  a  free  lecture  on  Tupper  considered  as 
a  philosophic  poet,  or  on  my  personal  recol 
lections  of  the  late  James  K.  Polk.  This 
being  so,  I  have  sometimes  wondered  that 
the  peep-shows  which  Nature  provides  with 
such  endless  variety  for  her  children,  and 
to  which  we  are  admitted  on  the  bare  condi 
tion  of  having  eyes,  should  be  so  generally 
neglected.  To  be  sure,  eyes  are  not  so  com 
mon  as  people  think,  or  poets  would  be 
plentier,  and  perhaps  also  these  exhibitions 
of  hers  are  cheapened  in  estimation  by  the 
fact  that  in  enjoying  them  we  are  not  get-  ., 
ting  the  better  of  anybody  else.  Your  true 
lovers  of  nature,  however,  contrive  to  get  even 
this  solace  ;  and  Wordsworth  looking  upon 
mountains  as  his  own  peculiar  sweethearts, 
was  jealous  of  anybody  else  who  ventured 
upon  even  the  most  innocent  flirtation  with 
them.  As  if  such  fellows,  indeed,  could  pre 
tend  to  that  nicer  sense  of  what-d'ye-call-it 
which  was  so  remarkable  in  him  !  Marry 


A    GOOD    WORD    FOR    WINTER.        49 

come   iT£ !     Mountains,  no  doubt,  may  in 
spire  a  profounder  and  more  exclusive  passion, 
but  on  the  whole  I  am  not  sorry  to  have 
been   born  and  bred  among  more  domestic 
scenes,  where  I  can  be  hospitable  without  a 
pang.     I  aro  going  to  ask  you  presently  to 
:  :<i ''/take 'potluck  with  me  at  a  board  where  Win- 
*titt&r  shall  supply  whatever  there  is  of  cheer. 

I  think  the  old  fellow  has  hitherto  had 
scant  justice  done  him  in  the  main.  We 
make  him  the  symbol  of  old  age  or  death, 
and  think  we  have  settled  the  matter.  As  if 
old  age  were  never  kindly  as  well  as  frosty  ; 
as  if  it  had  no  reverend  graces  of  its  own  as 
good  in  their  way  as  the  noisy  impertinence  of 
childhood,  the  elbowing self-conceit  ojF  youth, 
or  the  pompous  'mediocrity  oT  middle  life  ! 
As  if  there  were  anything  discreditable  in 
death,  or  nobody  had  ever  longed  for  it !  Sup 
pose  we  grant  that  Winter  is  the  sleep  of  the 
year,  what  then  ?  I  take  it  upon  me  to  say 
that  his  dreams  are  finer  than  the  best  reality 
of  his  waking  rivals. 

(<  Sleep,  Silence'  child,  the  father  of  soft  Rest," 


50        A    GOOD    WORD    FOR    WINTER. 

is  a  very  agreeable  acquaintance,  and  most 
of  us  are  better  employed  in  his  company 
than  anywhere  else.  For  my  own  part,  I 
think  Winter  a  pretty  wide-awake  old  boy, 
and  his  bluff  sincerity  and  hearty  ways  are 
more  congenial  to  my  mood,  and  more  whole 
some  for  me,  than  any  charms  of  which  his 
rivals  are  capable.  Spring  is  a  fickle  mis 
tress,  who  either  does  not  know  her  own 
mind,  or  is  so  long  in  making  it  up,  whether 
you  shall  have  her  or  not  have  her,  that 
one  gets  tired  at  last  of  her  pretty  miffs  and 
reconciliations.  You  go  to  her  to  be  cheered 
up  a  bit,  and  ten  to  one  catch  her  in  the 
sulks,  expecting  you  to  find  enough  good- 
humor  for  both.  After  she  has  become 
Mrs.  Summer  she  grows  a  little  more  staid 
in  her  demeanor  ;  and  her  abundant  table, 
where  you  are  sure  to  get  the  earliest  fruits 
and  vegetables  of  the  season,  is  a  good  foun 
dation  for  steady  friendship  ;  but  ,she  has./ 
lost  that  delicious  aroma  01*  maidenhood,  and 

^MM0MMMM* 

what  was  delicately  rounded  grace  in  the 
girl  gives  more  than  hints  of  something  like 
redundance  in  the  matron.  Autumn  is  the 


A    GOOD    WORD    FOR    WINTER.        51 

poet  of  the  family.  He  gets  you  up  a  splen 
dor  that  you  would  say  was  made  out  of  real 
sunset ;  but  it  is  nothing  more  than  a  few 
T^ctic  leaves,  when  all  is  done.  He  is  but  a 
sentimentalist,  after  all  ;  a  kind  of  Lamar- 
tine  whining  along  the  ancestral  avenues  he 
has  made  bare  timber  of,  and  begging  a 
contribution  of  good-spirits  from  your  own 
savings  to  keep  him  in  countenance.  But 
Winter  has  his  delicate  sensibilities  too,  only 
he  does  not  make  them  as  good  as  indelicate 
by  thrusting  them  forever  in  your  face.  He 
is  a  better  poet  than  Autumn,  when  he  has 
a  mind,  but,  like  a  truly  great  one  as  he  is, 
he  brings  you  down  to  your  bare  manhood, 
and  bids  you  understand  him  out  of  that, 
with  no  adventitious  helps  of  association,  01 
he  will  none  of  you.  He  does  not  touch 
those  melancholy  chords  on  which  Autumn 
is  as  great  a  master  as  Heine.  Well,  is  there 
no  such  thing  as  thrumming  on  tliem  'atidT 
maundering  over  them  till  they  get  out  ot 
tune,  and  you  wish  some  manly  hand  would 
crash  through  them  and  leave  them  dangling 
brokenly  forever  ?  Take  Winter  as  you  find 


£2        A    GOOD   WORD    FOR   WINTER. 

him,  and  he  turns  out  to  be  a  thoroughly 
honest  fellow,  with  no  nonsense  in  him,  and 
tolerating  none  in  you,  which  is  a  great  com 
fort  in  the  long  run.  He  is  not  what  they 
call  a  genial  critic  ;  but  bring  a  real  man 
along  with  you,  and  you  will  find  there  is  a 
crabbed  generosity  about  the  old  cynic  that 
you  would  not  exchange  for  all  the  creamy 
concessions  of  Autumn.  "  Season  of  /nists. 
and  mellow  fruitfulness,"  qiibtfia  ?  Th^t^s 
just  ,it  ;  Winter  soon  blows  joux-h^aa  clear 
of  ig*  and  makes  you  see  things  as  they  are  ; 
I  thank  him  for  it  !  The  truth  is,  between 
ourselves,  I  have  a  very  good  opinion  of  the 
whole  family,  who  always  welcome  me  with 
out  making  me  feel  as  if  I  were  too  much  of 
a  poor  relation.  There  ought  to  be  some 
kind  of  distance,  never  so  little,  you  know, 
to  give  the  true  relish.  They  are  as  good 
company,  the  worst  of  them,  as  any  I  know, 
and  I  am  not  a  little  flattered  by  a  conde 
scension  from  any  one  of  them  ;  but  I  hap 
pen  to  hold  Winter's  retainer,  this  time,  and, 
like  an  honest  advocate,  am  bound  to  make 
as  good  a  showing  as  I  can  for  him,  even  if 


A    GOOD    WORD    FOR    WINTER.        53 

it  cost  a  few  slurs  upon  the  rest  of  the 
household.  Moreover,  Winter  is  coming, 
and  one  would  like  to  get  on  the  blind  side 
of  him. 

The  love  of  Nature  in  and  for  herself,  or 
as  a  mirror  for  the  moods  of  the  mind,  is  a 
modern  thing.  The  fleeing  to  her  as  an  es 
cape  from  man  was  brought  into,  fashion  by 
Rousseau  ;  for  his  prototype  Pefrarcli,  though 
'^  The  had  a  taste  for  pretty  scenery,  had  a  true 
antique  horror  for  the  grander  aspects  of  .na-  ^ 
ture.  He  got  once  to  the  top  of  Motif  Ven4". 
toux,  but  it  is  very  plain  that  he  did  not 
enjoy  it.  Indeed,  it  is  only  within  a  century 
or  so  that  the  search  after  the  picturesque 
h&s  been  a  _safe  employment.  It  is  not  so 
even  now  in  Greece  or  Southern  Italy.  Where 
the  Anglo-Saxon  carves  his  cold  fowl,  and 
leaves  the  relics  of  his  picnic,  the  ancient  or 
mediaeval  man  might  be  pretty  confident 
that  some  ruffian  would  try  the  edge  of  his 
knife  on  a  chicken  of  the  Platonic  sort,  and 
leave  more  precious  bones  as~an  offering  to 
the  genius  of  the  place.  The  ancients  were 
certainly  more  social  than  we,  though  that, 


54       A    GOOD   WORD   FOR   WINTER. 

perhaps,  was  natural  enough,  when  a  good 
part  of  the  world  was  still  covered  with  for 
est.  They  huddled  together  in  cities  as  well 
for  safety  as  to  keep  their  minds  warm.  The 
Romans  had  a  fondness  for  country  life,  but 
they  had  fine  roads,  and  Rome  was  always 
within  easy  reach.  The  author  of  the  Book 
of  Job  is  the  earliest  I  know  of  who  showed 
any  profound  sense  of  the  moral  meaning  of 
the  outward  world  ;  and  I  think  none  has 
approached  him  since,  though  Wordsworth 
comes  nearest  with  the  first  two  books  of  the 
"  Prelude."  But  their  feeling  is  not  precisely 
of  the  kind  I  speak  of  as  modern,  and  which 
gave  rise  to  what  is  called  descriptive  poe 
try.  Chaucer  opens  his  Clerk's  Tale  with  a 
bit  of  landscape  admirable  for  its  large  style, 
and  as  well  composed  as  any  Claude. 

"  There  is  right  at  the  west  end  of  Itaille, 
Down  at  the  root  of  Vesulus  the  cold, 

\  A-1   *tt*/  ' 

A  lusty  plain  abundant  of  vitaille, 
Where  many  a  tower  and  town  thou  mayst  be 
hold, 

That  founded  were  in  time  of  fathers  old, 
And  many  an  other  delectable  sight ; 
And  Saluces  this  noble  country  hight. " 


A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER.        55 

What  an  airy  precision  of  touch  there  is 
here,  and  what  a  sure  eye  for  the  points  of 
character  in  landscape  !  But  the  picture  is 
altogether  ^ub§idjafy.  No  doubt  the  works  of 
Salvator  Rosa  and  Gaspar  Poussin  show  that 
there  must  have  been  some  amateur  taste  for 
the  grand  and  terrible  in  scenery  ;  but  the 
British  poet  Thomson  ("  sweet-souled "  is 
Wordsworth's  apt  word)  was  the  first  to  do 
with  words  what  they  had  done  partially 
with  colors.  He  was  turgid, -no  good  me- 
trist,  and  his  English  is  like  a  translation 
from  one  of  those  poets  who  wrote  in  Latin 
after  it  was  dead  ;  but  he  was  a  man  of  sin 
cere  genius,  and  not  only  English,  but  Euro 
pean  literature  isr  largely  in  his  debt.  He 
was  the  inventor  of  cheap  amusement  for  the 
million,  to  be  had  of  All-out-doors  for^the 
asking.  It  was  his  impulse  which  uncon 
sciously  gave  direct jon  ta-^asseai-L  and  it  is. 
to  the  school  of  JfeaiTtJacques  tKat  we  'owe 
St.  Pierre,  Cowper,  Chateaubriand, 
worth,  Byron^amartine,  George  Sand, 
kin,  —  the  great  painters  of  ideal  landscape. 

'-  So  long  as  men  had  slender 

' 


.    ,  or 
'goc 


56        A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER. 

er  of  keeping  out  cold  or  checkmating  it 
with  artificial  heat,  Winter  was  an  unwel 
come  euest,  especially  in  the  country.  There 

to  '        r  J      pAcaZ-d,  XjUtfjjJ.a.  ,V<ryo£.    furt 

he  was  the  bearer  of  a  lettre  de  cachet,  which?... 
shut  its  victims  in  solitary  confinement  wittf'Vi^i 
few  resources  but  to  boose  round  the  fire  and 
repeat  ghost-stories,  which  had  lost  all  their 
freshness  and  none  of  their  terror.  To  go  to 
bed  was  to  lie  awake  of  cold,  with  an  added 
shudder  of  fright  whenever  a  loose  casement 
or  a  waving  curtain  chose  to  give  you  the 
ose-flesh.  Bussy  Rabutin,  in  one  of  his 
letters,  gives  us  a  notion  how  uncomfort 
able  it  was  in  the  country,  with  green  wood, 
smoky  chimneys,  and  doors  and  windows  that 
thought  it  was  their  duty  to  make  the  wind 
whistle,  not  to  keep  it  out.  With  fuel  so 
dear,  it  could  not  have  been  niuch  .better  « 

A  F/L*  qJkJjLff^fJfU&f 

in  the  city,  to  judge  by  Menage's  warning 
against  the  danger  of  our  dressing-gowns  tak 
ing  fire,  while  we  cuddle  too  closely  over  the 
sparing  blaze.  The  poet  of  Winter  himself  < 
is  said  to  have  written  in  bed,  with  his  hand 
through  a  hole  in  the  blanket ;  and  we  may 
suspect  that  it  was  the  warmth  quite  as 


A    GOOD    WORD    FOR    WINTER.        57 

much  as  the  company  that  first  drew  men 
together  at   the  coffee-house.     Coleridge,  J. 
January,   1800,  writes  to  Wedgewpod  f" " 

am  sitting  by  a  fire  in  a  ru^  great-coat i^<*  v-< 

It  is  most  barbarously  cold,  and  you,  I  fear,  •• 
can  shield  yourself  from  it  only  by  perpetual 
imprisonment."  This  thermometrical  view 
of  winter  is,  I  grant,  a  depressing  one  ;  for 
I  think  there  is  nothing  so  demoralizing  as 
cold.  I  know  of  a  boy  who,  when  his  father, 
a  bitter  economist,  was  brought  home  dead, 
said~~only,  "  Now  we  can  burn  as  much  wood 
as  we  like."  I  would  not  off-hand  prophesy 
the  gallows  for  that  boy.  I  remember  with 
a  shudder  a  pinch  I  go\  from  the  cold  once 
in  a  railroad-car.  rjj^/porfr  ianatic_j)f  fresh 
air,  I  found  myselfglad  to  see  the  windows 
hermetically  sealed  by  the  freezing  vapor 
of  our  breath,  and  plotted  the  assassination 
of  the  conductor  every  time  he  opened  the 

door.      I   felt   myself  sensibly   barbarizing, 

*f^y^wrf*f  Cfi 
and  would  have  shared  Colonel  Jack's  bed  > 

in  the  ash-hole  of  the  glass-furnace  with  a  .' 
grateful  heart.     Since  then  I  have  had  more  (•    r 
charity  for  the  prevailing  ill-opinion  of  win-  ^  I* 


$ 


«nr      ^t^^AV 

58       A   GOOD   WORD    FOR   WINTER. 

" 


A&*  ,,*-  (3 

ter.  It  was  natural  enough  that  Ovid  should 
measure  the  years  of  his  exile  in  Pontus  by 
the  number  of  winters. 

(r^     -Cl^t    *v«Mt/(^   , 

Ut  sumus  in  Ponto,  ter  frigore  constitit  Ister, 
Facta  est  Euxini  dura  ter  unda  raaris  : 


Thrice  hath  the  cold  bound  Ister  fast,  since  I 
In  Pontus  was,  thrice  Euxine's  wave  made  hard. 

i-  . 

Jubinal  has  printed  an  Anglo-Norman  piece 
d°g&erel  m  wnicn  Winter  and  Summer 
dispute  which  is,  the  better  man,  .  It  is  i;ot 

•          1-  JaAJSr    v^X?-t'-/V-  .'  \/vx^vp*j  'ivjfT  1  xxxiX!^*Wi»> 

without  a  kind  6'f  rough  and  Inchoate  humor, 
and  I  like  it  because  old  Whitebeard  gets 
tolerably  fair  play.  The  jolly  old  fellow 
boasts  of  his  rate  of  living,  with  that  con 
tempt  of  poverty  which  is  the  weak  spot  in 
t]^e  burly  English  nature. 

Ja  Dieu  ne  place  que  me  avyenge 
Que  ne  face  plus  honour 
Et  plus  despenz  en  un  soul  jour 
Que  vus  en  tote  vostre  vie  : 

Now  God  forbid  it  hap  to  me 
That  I  make  not  more  great  display, 
And  spend  more  in  a  single  day 
Than  you  can  do  in  all  your  life. 


A    GOOD   WOUD    FOR   WINTER.       59 

The  best  touch,  perhaps,  is  Winter's  claim 
for   credit  as   a   mender   of   the   highways, 

which  was  not  without  point  when  ever 

,    .      _,  tia&e*****  £&* 

road  in  Europe  was  a  quagmire  during 

good  part  of  the  year  unless  it  was  bottomed./  '•, 
on  some  remains  of  Roman  enineerin.  7i/j 


. 


Je  su,  fet-il,  seignur  et  mestre 
Et  a  bon  droit  le  dey  estre, 
Quant  de  la  bowe  face  cauce 
Par  mi  petit  de  geele  : 

Master  and  lord  I  am,  says  he, 

And  of  good  right  so  ought  to  be,    /^^ 

Since  I  make  causeys,  safely  crost, 


veL  <flt 


.  .  ,         . 

ut  there  is  no  recognition 
best  of  outdoor  company. 

Even  Emerson,  an  open-air  man,  and  a 
bringer  of  it,  if  ever  any,  confesses, 

"  The  frost-king  ties  my  fumbling  feet, 
Sings  in  my  ear,  my  hands  are  stones, 
Curdles  the  blood  to  the  marble  bones, 
Tugs  at  the  heartstrings,  numbs  the  sense, 
And  herns  in  life  with  narrowing  fence." 


60        A    GOOD   WORD    FOR   WINTER. 

Winter  was  literally  "  the  inverted  year,*1 
as  Thomson  called  him  ;  for  such  entertain 
ments  as  could  be  had  must  be  got  withii.. 
doors.  What  cheerfulness  there  was  in  "hru 
mal  verse  was  that  of  Horace's  dissolve  frig\Jr 
Ugna  super  foco  large  reponens ,  so  pleasantly 
associated  with  the  cleverest  scene  in  Roder 
ick  Random.  This  is  the  tone  of  that  poem 
of  Walton's  friend  Cotton,  which  won  tho 
praise  of  Wordsworth  :  — 

"  Let  us  home, 
Our  mortal  enemy  is  come  ; 
Winter  and  all  his  blustering  train 
Have  made  a  voyage  o'er  the  main. 

"  Fly,  fly,  the  foe  advances  fast ; 
Into  our  fortress  let  us  haste, 
Where  all  the  roarers  of  the  north 
Can  neither  storm  nor  starve  us  forth. 

"  There  underground  a  magazine 
Of  sovereign  juice  is  cellared  in, 
Liquor  that  will  the  siege  maintain 
Should  Phoebus  ne'er  return  again. 

"  Whilst  we  together  jovial  sit 
Careless,  and  crowned  with  mirth  and  wit, 


A    GOOD    WORD    FOE,   WINTER.        61 

Where,  though  bleak  winds  confine  us  home, 
Our  fancies  round  the  world  shall  roam." 

Thomson's  view  of  Winter  is  also,  on  the 
whole,  a  hostile  one,  though  he  does  justice 
to  his  grandeur. 

"Thus  Winter  falls, 

A  heavy  gloom  oppressive  o'er  the  world, 
Through  Nature  shedding  influence  malign.  "j 

X^VVv-jp^- 

He  finds  his  consolations,  like  Cotton,  in  the 
house,  though  more  refined  :  — 

"  While  without 

The  ceaseless  winds  blow  ice,  be  my  retreat 
Between  the  groaning  forest  and  the  shore 
Beat  by  the  boundless  multitude  of  waves, 
A  rural,  sheltered,  solitary  scene, 
Where  ruddy  fire  and  beaming  tapers  join 
To  cheer  the  gloom.     There  studious  let  me  sit 
.   And  hold  high  converse  with  the  mighty  dead." 

'  /V^t^>/t*^iC*<JLvvJ  e^jrf^  f   ^*55k«MbMAAjl6  <$ 

Doctor  Akenside,  a  man  to  be  spoken  of  withy11' 
respect,  follows  Thomson.  With  him,  too.  .  - 
"  Winter  desolates  the  year,"  and  *fT^ 


"  How  pleasing  wears  the  wintry  night 
Spent  with  the  old  illustrious  dead  ! 
While  by  the  taper's  trembling  light 


, 
' 


62        A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER. 

I  seem  those  awful  scenes  to  tread 
Where  chiefs  or  legislators  lie,"  &c. 

Akenside  had  evidently  been  reading 
Thomson.  He  had  the  conceptions  of  a 
great  poet  with  less  faculty  than  many  a 
little  one,  and  is  one  of  those  versifiers  of 
whom  it  is  enough  to  say  that  we  are  always 
willing  to  break  him  off  in  the  middle  with 
an  &c.,  well  knowing  that  what  follows  is 
but  the  coming-round  again  of  what  went 
before,  marching  in  a  circle  with  the  cheap 
numerosity  of  a  stage-army.  In  truth,  it 
is  no  wonder  that  the  short  days  of  that 
cloudy  northern  climate  should  have  added 
to  winter  a  gloom  borrowed  of  the  mind. 
We  hardly  know,  till  we  have  experienced 
the  contrast,  how  sensibly  our  winter  is  alle 
viated  by  the  longer  daylight  and  the  pel 
lucid  atmosphere.  I  once  spent  a  winter  in 
Dresden,  a  southern  climate  compared  with 
England,  and  really  almost  lost  my  respect 
for  the  sun  when  I  saw  him  groping  among 
the  chimney-pots  opposite  ^y  wjndows^  as^r. 
he  described  his  impoverished  arc  in  the 
sky.  The  enforced  seclusion  of  the  season 


A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER.        63 

makes  it  the  time  for  serious  study  and  oc 
cupations  that  demand  fixed  incomes  of  un 
broken  time.  This  is  why  Milton  said  "  that 
Ws  vein  never  happily  flowed  but  from  the 
autumnal 'equinox  to  the  vernal/'  though  in 
his  twentieth  year  he  had  written,  on  the  re 
turn  of  spring,  — 

Fallor  ?  an  et  nobis  redeunt  in  carmina  vires 
Ingeniumque  mihi  munere  veris  adest  ? 

Err  I  ?  or  do  the  powers  of  song  return 
To  me,  and  genius  too,  the  gifts  of  Spring  ? 

Goethe,  so  far  as  I  remember,  was  the  first 
to  notice  the  cheerfulness  of  snow  in  sun 
shine.  His  Harz-reise  im  Winter  gives  no 
hint  of  it,  for  that  is  a  diluted  reminiscence 
of  Greek  tragic  choruses  and  the  Book  of 
Job  in  nearly  equal  parts.  In  one  of  the 
singularly  interesting  and  characteristic  let 
ters  to  Frau  von  Stein,  however,  written 
during  the  journey,  he  says  :  "  It  is  beauti 
ful  indeed  ;  the  mist  heaps  itself  together  in 
light  snow-clouds,  the  sun  looks  through, 
and  the  snow  over  everything  gives  back  a 


64       A    GOOD   WORD   FOR   WINTER. 

feeling  of  gayety."  But  I  find  in  Cowper 
the  first  recognition  of  a  general  amiability 
in  Winter.  The  gentleness  of  his  temper, 
and  the  wide  charity  of  his  sympathies,  made 
it  natural  for  him  to  find  good  in  everything 
except  the  human  heart.  A  dreadful  creed 
distilled  from  the  darkest  moments  of  dys 
peptic  solitaries  compelled  him  against  his 
will  to  see  in  that  the  one  evil  thing  made 
by  a  God  whose  goodness  is  over  all  his 
works.  Cowper's  two  walks  in  the  morn 
ing  and  noon  of  a  winter's  day  are  delight 
ful,  so  long  as  he  contrives  to  let  himself  be 
happy  in  the  graciousness  of  the  landscape. 
Your  muscles  grow  springy,  and  your  lungs 
dilate  with  the  crisp  air  as  you  walk  along 
with  him.  You  laugh  with  him  at  the  gro-^ 
tesque  shadow  of  your  legs  lengthened  across 
the  snow  by  the  just-risen  sun.  I  know  r 
nothing  that  gives  a  purer  feeling  of  out 
door  exhilaration  than  the  easy  v/erseq  of  this 

,  J&*"**lC'   -jOf    ^«*ycA*dW**-*  •-•c^-iv  ,4 

escaped  hypochondriac.  But  Ctfwper  also 
preferred  his  sheltered  garden-walk  to  those 
robuster  joys,  and  bitterly  acknowledged  the 
depressing  influence  of  the  darkened  year. 


A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER.        65 

In  December,  1780,  he  writes  :  "At  this 
season  of  the  year,  and  in  this  gloomy  un 
comfortable  climate,  it  is  no  easy  matter  for 
the  owner  of  a  mind  like  mine  to  divert  it 
from  sad  subjects,  and  to  fix  it  upon  such 
as  may  administer  to  its  amusement."  Or 
was  it  because  he  was  writing  to  the  rlread- 

•  ful  Newton  ?  Perhaps  his  poetry  bears  truer 
'  °(  witness  to  his  habitual  feeling,  for  it  is  only 

"^  there  that  poets  disenthral  themselves  of  their 

<HK-^ 

)      Deserve  and  become  fully  possessed  of  their 

.-€^  greatest  charm,  —  the  power  of  being  franker 

(    than  other  men.     In  the  Third  Book  of  the 

;       Task  he  boldly  affirms  his  preference  of  the 

country  to  the  city  even  in  winter  :  — 

.  -i'Biit  are  not  wholesome  airs,  though  unperfumed 
By  roses,  and  clear  suns,  though  scarcely  felt, 


And  groves,  if  inharmonious,  yet  secure 
From  clamor,  and  whose  very  silence  charms, 
To  be  preferred  to  smoke  ?  .  .  .  . 
They  would  be,  were  not  madness  in  the  head 
And  folly  in  the  heart  ;  were  England  now 
What  England  was,  plain,  hospitable  kind, 
And  undebauched." 

The   conclusion   shows,  however,  that  he 
was  thinking  mainly  of  fireside  delights,  not 


66       A   GOOD   WORD    TOR   WINTER. 

of  the  blusterous  companionship  of  nature. 
This  appears  even  more  clearly  in  the 
Fourth  Book  :  — 

"  0  Winter,  ruler  of  the  inverted  year"  ; 

but  I  cannot  help  interrupting  him  to  say 
how  pleasant  it  always  is  to  track  poets 
through  the  gardens  of  their  predecessors 
and  find  out  their  likings  by  a  flower 
snapped  off  here  and  there  to  garnish  their 
own  nosegays.  Cowper  had  been  reading 
Thomson,  and  "the  inverted  year"  pleased 
his  fancy  with  its  suggestion  of  that  starry 
wheel  of  the  zodiac  moving  round  through 
its  spaces  infinite.  He  could  not  help  lov 
ing  a  handy  Latinism  (especially  with  elision"^/ 


beauty   added),  any  more   than  Gray, 

more  than  Wordsworth,  —  on  the  sly.     ButUv 

the  member  for  Olney  has  the  floor  :  —  ,<t/»Jt\ 

"  0  Winter,  ruler  of  the  inverted  year,  ^ 
Thy  scattered  hair  with  sleet  like  ashes  filled, 
Thy  breath  congealed  upon  thy  lips,  thy  cheeks 
Fringed  with  a  beard  made  white  with  other  snows 
Than  those  of  age,  thy  forehead  wrapt  in  clouds, 
A  leafless  branch  thy  sceptre,  and  thy  throne 
A  sliding  car,  indebted  to  no  wheels, 


A   GOOD   WORD    FOE,   WINTER.       67 

But  urged  by  storms  along  its  slippery  way, 
I  love  thee  all  unlovely  as  thou  seem'st, 
And  dreaded  as  thou  art !    Thou  hold'st  the  sun 
A  prisoner  in  the  yet  undawning  east, 
Shortening  his  journey  between  morn  and  noon, 
And  hurrying  him,  impatient  of  his  stay, 
Down  to  the  rosy  west,  but  kindly  still 
Compensating  his  loss  with  added  hours 
Of  social  converse  and  instructive  ease, 
And  gathering  at  short  notice,  in  one  group, 
The  family  dispersed,  and  fixing  thought, 
Not  less  dispersed  by  daylight  and  its  cares. 
I  crown  thee  king  of  intimate  delights, 
Fireside  enjoyments,  homeborn  happiness, 
And  all  the  comforts  that  the  lowly  roof 
Of  undisturbed  Retirement,  and  the  hours 
Of  long  uninterrupted  evening  know." 

I  call  this  a  good  human  bit,  of  writing, 
imaginative,  too, — not  so  flushed,  not  so 
....  highfaluting  (let  me  dare  the  odious 
word  ! )  as  the  modern  style  since  poets  have 
got  hold  of  a  theory  that  imagination  is 
common-sense  turned  inside  out,  and  not 
common-sense  sublimed,  —  but  wholesome, 
masculine,  and  strong  in  the  simplicity  of  a 
mind  wholly  occupied  with  its  theme.  To 


68       A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER. 

me  Cowper  is  still  the  best  of  our  descrip 
tive  poets  for  every-day  wear.  And  what 
unobtrusive  skill  he  has  !  How  he  height 
ens,  for  example,  your  sense  of  winter-even 
ing  seclusion,  by  the  twanging  horn  of  the 
postman  on  the  bridge !  That  horn  has 
rung  in  my  ears  ever  since  I  first  heard  it, 
during  the  consulate  of  the  second  Adams. 
Wordsworth  strikes  a  deeper  note  ;  but  does 
it  not  sometimes  come  over  one  (just  the 
least  in  the  world)  that  one  would  give  any 
thing  for  a  bit  of  nature  pure  and  simple, 
without  quite  so  strong  a  flavor  of  W.  W.  1 
W.  W.  is,  of  course,  sublime  and  all  that  — 
but !  For  my  part,  I  will  make  a  clean 
breast  of  it,  and  confess  that  I  can't  look  at 
a  mountain  without  fancying  the  late  laure 
ate's  gigantic  Roman  nose  thrust  between 
me  and  it,  and  thinking  of  Dean  Swift's 
profane  version  of  Romanos  rerum  dominos 
into  Roman  nose !  a  rare  un !  dom  your  nose  ! 
But  do  I  judge  verses,  then,  by  the  impres 
sion  made  on  me  by  the  man  who  wrote 
them  ?  Not  so  fast,  my  good  friend,  but, 
for  good  or  evil,  the  character  and  its  intel 
lectual  nroduct  are  inextricably  interfused. 


A   GOOD   WORD    FOR   WINTER.       69 

If  I  remember  aright,  Wordsworth  him 
self  (except  in  his  magnificent  skating-scene 
in  the  "Prelude")  has  not  much  to  say  for 
winter  out  of  doors.  I  cannot  recall  any 
picture  by  him  of  a  snow-storm.  The 
reason  may  possibly  be  that  in  the  Lake 
Country  even  the  winter  storms  bring  rain 
rather  than  snow.  He  was  thankful  for  the 
Christmas  visits  of.  CraBb  TSofSnson ,  because 
they  "helped  him  through  the  winter." 
His  only  hearty  praise  of  winter  is  when,  as;  >  ..y 
General  Fevrier,  he  defeats  the  French  :  -  t£a^j 

"Humanity,  delighting  to  behold 
A  fond  reflection  of  her  own  decay, 
Hath  painted  Winter  like  a  traveller  old, 
Propped  on  a  staff,  and,  through  the  sullen  day, 
In  hooded  mantle,  limping  o'er  the  plain 
As  though  his  weakness  were  disturbed  by  pain  : 
Or,  if  a  juster  fancy  should  allow 
An  undisputed  symbol  of  command, 
The  chosen  sceptre  is  a  withered  bough 
Infirmly  grasped  within  a  withered  hand. 
These  emblems  suit  the  helpless  and  forlorn  ; 
But  mighty  Winter  the  device  shall  scorn." 

The  Scottish  poet  Grahame,  in  his  "  Sab- 
says  manfully  :  - 


70       A    GOOD   WORD    FOR   WINTER. 

"  Now  is  the  time 
To  visit  Nature  in  her  grand  attire  " ; 

and  he  has  one  little  picture  which  no  other 
poet  has  surpassed  :  — 

"  High-ridged  the  whirled  drift  has  almost  reached 
The  powdered  keystone  of  the  churchyard  porch : 
Mute  hangs  the  hooded  bell;  the  tombs  lie  buried." 

Even  in  our  own  climate,  where  the  sun 
shows  his  winter  face  as  long  and  as  brightly 
as  in  Central  Italy,  the  seduction  of  the 
chimney-corner  is  apt  to  predominate  in  the 
mind  over  the  severer  satisfactions  of  muf 
fled  fields  and  penitential  woods.  The  very 
title  of  Whittier's  delightful  "  Snow-Bound" 
shows  what  he  was  thinking  of,  though  he 
does  vapor  a  little  about  digging  out  paths. 
The  verses  of  Emerson,  perfect  as  a  Greek 
fragment  (despite  the  archaism  of  a  dissyl 
labic  fire),  which  ^e_  has  chosen  for  his  epi 
graph,  tell  us,  too,  how  the 

"Housemates  sit 

Around  the  radiant  fireplace,  enclosed 
In  a  tumultuous  privacy  of  storm." 


A    GOOD   WOUD   POR   WINTER.        71 

They  are  all  in  a  tale.  It  is  always  the 
tristis  Hiems  of  Virgil.  Catch  one  of  them 
having  a  kind  word  for  old  Barbe  Fleurie, 
unless  he  whines  through  some  cranny,  like 
a  beggar,  to  heighten  their  enjoyment  while 
they  toast  their  slippered  toes.  I  grant 
there  is  a  keen  relish  of  contrast  about 
the  bickering  flame  as  it  gives  an  emphasis 
beyond  Gherarclo  della  Notte  to  loved  faces, 
or  kindles  the  gloomy  gold  of  volumes 
scarce  less  friendly,  especially  when  a  tem 
pest  is  blundering  round  the  house.  Words 
worth  has  a  fine  touch  that  brings  home  to 
us  the  comfortable  contrast  of  without  and 
within,  during  a  storm  at  night,  and  the 
passage  is  highly  characteristic  of  a  poet 
whose  inspiration  always  has  an  undertone 
of  bourgeois : —Q.  **•**•»-  «•* 

"  How  touching,  when,  at  midnight,  sweep 
Snow-muffled  winds,  and  all  is  dark, 
To  hear,  —  and  sink  again  to  sleep  ! " 

J.  H.,  one  of  those  choice  poets  who  will 
not  tarnish  their  bright  fancies  by  publica 
tion,  always  insists  on  a  snow-storm  as  essen- 


72        A    GOOD   WORD   FOR   WINTER. 

tial  to  the  true  atmosphere  of  whist.  Mrs. 
Battle!,  in  her  famous  rule  for  the  game,  im 
plies  winter,  and  would  doubtless  have  added 
tempest,  if  it  could  be  had  for  the  asking.  For 
a  good  solid  read  also,  into  the  small  hours, 
there  is  nothing  like  that  sense  of  safety 
against  having  your  evening  laid  waste, 
which  Euroclydon  brings,  as  he  bellows 
down  the  chimney,  making  your  fire  gasp, 
or  rustles  snow-flakes  against  the  pane  with 
abound  more  soothing  than  sijence.  Emer 
son,  as  he  is  apt  to  do,  not  only  hit  the  nail 
on  the  head,  but  drove  it  home,  in  that  last 
phrase  of  the  "  tumultuous  privacy." 

But  I  would  exchange  this,  and  give  some 
thing  to  boot,  for  the  privilege  of  walking 
out  into  the  vast  blur  of  a  north-northeast 
snow-storm,  and  getting  a  strong  draught  on 
the  furnace  within,  by  drawing  the  first  fur 
rows  through  its  sandy  drifts.  I  love  those 

"  Noontide  twilights  which  snow  makes 
With  tempest  of  the  blinding  flakes." 

If  the  wind  veer  too  much  toward  the  eastf 
you  get  the  heavy  snow  that  gives  a  true 


A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER.        73 

Alpine  slope  to  the  boughs  of  your  ever 
greens,  and  traces  a  skeleton  of  your  elms  in 
white  ;  but  you  must  have  plenty  of  north 
in  your  gale  if  you  want  those  driving  nettles 
of  frost  that  sting  the  cheeks  to  a  crimson 
manlier  than  that  of  fire.  During  the  great 
storm  of  two  winters  ago,  the  most  robustious 
periwig-pated  fellow  of  late  years,  I  waded 
and  floundered  a  couple  of  miles  through  the 
whispering  night,  and  brought  home  that 
feeling  of  expansion  we  have  after  being  in 
good  company.  "  Great  things  doeth  He 
which  we  cannot  comprehend  ;  for  he  saith 
to  the  snow,  '  Be  thou  on  the  earth.'  " 

There  is  admirable  snow  scenery  in  JudcVs 
"  Margaret,"  but   some   one   has   confiscated 
my  copy  of  that  admirable  book,  and,  per-  ^ 
haps,  Homer's  picture  of  a  snow-storrn  is  the  '' 
best  yet  in  its  large  simplicity  :  —  - 


t»-fr-r,          -          .^KWW^-v^CA 

"  And  as  in  winter-time,  when  Jove  his  cold  sliai 

javelins  throws 
Amongst  us  mortals,  and  is  moved  to  white  the 

earth  with  snows, 
The  winds  asleep,  he  freely  pours  till  highest 

prominents, 


74        A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER. 

;'V*  s  /fcW9L  I      MW*      V*  *"vVv£X* 

Hill-tops,  low  meadows,  and  the  fields  that  crown 

with  most  contents 
The  toils  of  men,  seaports  and  shores,  are  hid, 

and  every  place, 
But  floods,  that  fair  snow's  tender  flakes,  as  their 

own  brood,  embrace." 
r-9>*f?  .  ;  ;.;-£-£ 

Chapman,  after  all,  though  he  makes  very 

free  with  him,  comes  nearer  Homer  than 
anybody  else.  There  is  nothing  in  the  origi 
nal  of  that  fair  snow's  tender  flakes,  but 
neither  Pope  nor  Cowper  could  get  out  of 
their  heads  the  Psalmist's  tender  phrase, 
"  He  giveth  his  snow  like  wool,"  for  which 
also  Homer  affords  no  hint.  Pope  talks  of 
"  dissolving  fleeces,"  and  Cowper  of  a  "  fleecy 
mantle."  But  David  is  nobly  simple,  wrhile 
Pope  is  simply  nonsensical,  and  Cowper 
pretty.  If  they  must  have  prettiness,  Mar 
tial  would  have  supplied  them  with  it  in  his 

Densum  tacitarum  vellus  aquarum, 

which  is  too  pretty,  though  I  fear  it  would 
have  pleased  Dr.  Donne.  Eustathius  of 
Thessalonica  calls  snow  vSoop  epuoSes,  woolly 
water,  which  a  poor  old  French  poet,  Godeau, 
has  amplified  into  this  :  — 


A    GOOD    WORD    FOE,   WINTER.        75 

Lorsque  la  froiclure  inhumaine 
De  leur  verd  ornement  depouille  les  forets 
Sous  une  neige  epaisse  il  couvre  les  guerets, 
Et  la  neige  a  pour  eux  la  chaleur  de  la  laine. 

In  this,  as  in  Pope's  version  of  the  passage  in 
Homer,  there  is,  at  least,  a  sort  of  suggestion 
of  snow-storm  in  the  blinding  drift  of  words. 
But,  on  the  whole,  if  one  would  know  what 
snow  is,  I  should  advise  him  not  to  hunt  up 
what  the  poets  have  said  about  it,  but  to  look 
at  the  sweet  miracle  itself. 

The  preluclings  of  Winter  are  as  beautiful 
as  those  of  Spring.  In  a  gray  December 
day,  when,  as  the  farmers  say,  it  is  too  cold 
to  snow,  his  numbed  fingers  will  let  fall 
doubtfully  a  few  star-shaped  flakes,  the  snow 
drops  and  anemones  that  harbinger  his  more 
assured  reign.  Now,  and  now  only,  may  be 
seen,  heaped  on  the  horizon's  eastern  edge, 
those  "blue  clouds"  from  forth  which 
Shakespeare  says  that  Mars  "  doth  pluck  the 
masoned  turrets."  Sometimes  also,  when 
the  sun  is  low,  you  will  see  a  single  cloud 
trailing  a  flurry  of  snow  along  the  south 
ern  hills  in  a  wavering  fringe  of  purple. 


76        A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER. 

And  when  at  last  the  real  snow-storm  comes, 
it  leaves  the  earth  with  a  virginal- look  on 
it  that  no  other  of  the  seasons  can  rival,  — 
compared  with  which,  indeed,  they  seem 
soiled  and  vulgar. 

And  what  is  there  in  nature  so  beautiful 
as  the  next  morning  after  such  confusion  of 
the  elements  ?  Night  has  no  silence  like 
this  of  busy  day.  All  the  batteries  of  noise 
are  spiked.  We  see  the  movement  of  life  as 
a  deaf  man  sees  it,  a  mere  wraith  of  the 
clamorous  existence  that  inflicts  itself  on  our 
ears  when  the  ground  is  bare.  The  earth  is 
clothed  in  innocence  as  a  garment.  Every 
wound  of  the  landscape  is  healed  ;  whatever 

was  stiff  has  cbeeft  sweetly  rou,nded  as  the      i 

«- 

breasts  of  Aphrodite  ;  *  wflat  was  unsightly  •', 
has  been  covered  gently  with  a  soft  splendor, 
as  if,  Cowley  would  have  said,  Nature  had 
cleverly  let  fall  her  handkerchief  to  hide  it. 
If  the  Virgin  (Notre  Dame  de  la  neige)  were 
to  come  back,  here  is  an  earth  that  would 
not  bruise  her  foot  nor  stain  it.  It  is 

"  The  fanned  snow 
That 's  bolted  by  the  northern  blasts  twice  o'er,"— 


A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER.        77 

Soffiata  e  stretta  dai  venti  Schiavi, 

Winnowed  and  packed  by  the  Sclavonian  winds,  — 

packed  so  hard  sometimes  on  hill-slopes  that 
it  will  bear  your  weight.  What  grace  is  in 
all  the  curves,  as  if  every  one  of  them  had 
been  s\vept  by  that  inspired  thumb  of  PhiiL: 
ias's  journeyman  ! 

Poets  have  fancied  the  footprints  of  the 
wind  in  those  light  ripples  that  sometimes 
scurry  across  smooth  water  with  a  sudden 
blur.  But  on  this  gleaming  hush  the  aerial 
deluge  has  left  plain  marks  of  its  course  ; 
and  in  gullies  through  which  it  rushed  tor 
rent-like,  the  eye  finds  its  bed  irregularly 
scooped  like  that  of  a  brook  in  hard  beach- 
sand,  or,  in  more  sheltered  spots,  traced  with 
outlines  like  those  left  by  the  sliding  edges 
of  the  surf  upon  the  shore.  The  air,  $fter 
all,  is  only  an  infinitely  thinner  kind  of 
water,  such  as  I  suppose  we  shall  have  to 
drink  when  the  state  does  her  whole  duty  as 
a  moral  reformer.  Nor  is  the  wind  the  only 
thing  whose  trail  you  will  notice  on  this 
sensitive  surface.  You  will  find  that  you 


78       A    GOOD   WORD    FOR   WINTER. 

have  more  neighbors  and  night  visitors  than 
you  dreamed  of.  Here  is  the  dainty  foot 
print  of  a  cat ;  here  a  dog  has  looked  in  on 
you  like  an  amateur  watchman  to  see  if  all  is 
right,  slumping  clumsily  about  in  the  mealy 
treachery.  And  look  !  before  you  were  up 
in  the  morning,  though  you  were  a  punctual 
courtier  at  the  sun's  levee,  here  has  been  a 
squirrel  zigzagging  to  and  fro  like  a  hound 
gathering  the  scent,  and  some  tiny  bird 
searching  for  unimaginable  food,  —  perhaps 
for  the  tinier  creature,  whatever  it  is,  that 
drew  this  slender  continuous  trail  like  those 
made  on  the  wet  beach  by  light  borderers  of 
the  sea.  The  earliest  autographs  were  as 
frail  as  these.  Poseidon  trd<ftct  his  lines,  or  . 
giant  birds  made  their  mark,  on  preadamite 
sea-margins  ;  and  the  thunder-gust  left  the 
te^-stains  of  its  sudden  passion  there ;  nay, 
we  have  the  signatures  of  delicatest  fern- 
leaves  on  the  soft  ooze  of  seons  that  dozed 
away  their  dreamless  leisure  before  conscious 
ness  came  upon  the  earth  with  man.  Some 
whim  of  nature  locked  them  fast  in  stone 
for  us  after-thoughts  of  creation.  Which  of 


A    GOOD    WORD    FOR    WINTER.        79 

us^  shall  leave  a  footprint  as  imperishable  as 
that  of  the  ornithorhyncus,  or  much  more 
so  than  that  of  these  Bedouins  of  the  snow-,. 
desert  1  Perhaps  it  was  only  because  the 
ripple  and  the  rain-drop  and  the  bird  were 
not  thinking  of  themselves,  that  they  had 
such  luck.  The  chances  of  immortality  de 
pend  very  much  on  that.  How  often  have 
we  not  seen  poor  mortals,  dupes  of  a  season's 
notoriety,  carving  their  names  on  seeming- 
solid  rock  of  merest  beach-sand,  whose  feeble 
hold  on  memory  shall  be  washed  away  by 
.  the  next  wave  of  fickle  opinion  !  Well,  well, 
c^}ionest  Jacques,  there  are  better  things  to  be 
in  the  snow  than  sermons. 


snow  that  falls  damp  comes  commonly 
in  larger  flakes  from  windless  skies,  and  is 
the  prettiest  of  all  to  watch  from  under  cover. 
This  is  the  kind  Homer  had  in  mind  ;  and 
Dante,  who  had  never  read  him,  compares 
the  dilatate  falde,  the  flaring  flakes,  of  his 
fiery  rain,  to  those  of  snow  among  the  moun 
tains  without  wind.  This  sort  of  snowfall 
has  no  fight  in  it,  and  does  not  challenge  you 
to  a  wrestle  like  that  which  drives  well  from 


80       A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER. 

the  northward,  with  all  moisture  thoroughly 
winnowed  out  of  it  by  the  frosty  wind. 
Burns,  who  was  more  out  of  doors  than  most 
poets,  and  whose  barefoot  Muse  got  the  color 
in  her  cheeks  by  vigorous  exercise  in  all 
weathers,  was  thinking  of  this  drier  deluge, 
when  he  speaks  of  the  "  whirling  drift,"  arid 

tells  how 

"  Chanticleer 

Shook  off  the  powthery  snaw." 

But  the  damper  and  more  deliberate  falls 
have  a  choice  knack  at  draping  the  trees  ; 
and  about  eaves  or  stone-walls,  wherever, 
indeed,  the  evaporation  is  rapid,  and  it  finds 
a  chance  to  cling,  it  will  build  itself  out  in 
curves  of  wonderful  beauty.  I  have  seen 
one  of  these  dumb  waves,  thus  caught  in  the 
act  of  breaking,  curl  four  feet  beyond  the 
edge  of  my  roof  and  hang  there  for  days,  as 
if  Nature  were  too  well  pleased  with  her 
work  to  let  it  crumble  from  its  exquisite 
pause.  After  such  a  storm,  if  you  are  lucky 
enough  to  have  even  a  sluggish  ditch  for 
a  neighbor,  be  sure  to  pay  it  a  visit.  You 
will  find  its  banks  corniced  with  what  seem* 


A    GOOD   WORD    TOE,   V- ,NTEU.        81 

precipitated  light,  and  the  dark  current 
down  below  gleams  as  if  with  an  inward 
lustre.  Dull  of  motion  as  it  is,  you  never 
saw  water  that  seemed  alive  before.  It  has 
a  brightness,  like  that  of  the  eyes  of  some 
smaller  animals,  which  gives  assurance  of 
life,  but  of  a  life  foreign  and  unintelligible. 

A  damp  snow-storm  often  turns  to  rain, 
and,  in  our  freakish  climate,  the  wind  will 
whisk  sometimes  into  the  northwest  so  sud 
denly  as  to  plate  all  the  trees  with  crystal 
before  it  has  swept  the  sky  clear  of  its  last 
cobweb  of  cloud.  Ambrose  Philips,  in  y 
poetical  epistle  from  Copenhagen  to  the  Earl 
of  Dorset,  describes  this  strange  confectionery 
of  Nature,  —  for  such,  I  am  half  ashamed  to 
say,  it  always  seems  to  me,  recalling  the 
"  glorified  sugar-candy  "  of  Lamb's  first  night 
at  the  theatre.  It  has  an  artificial  air,  alto 
gether  beneath  the  grand  artist  of  the  atmos 
phere,  and  besides  does  too  much  mischief  to 
the  trees  for  a  philodendrist  to  take  unmixed 
pleasure  in  it.  Perhaps~it  deserves  a  poet 
like  Philips,  who  really  loved  Nature  and 
yet  liked  her  to  be  mighty  fine,  as  Pepys 


82        A    GOOD    WORD    FOR    WINTER. 

would  say,  with  a  heightening  of  powder  and 

rouge  :  — 

"  And  yet  but  lately  have  1  seen  e'en  here 

The  winter  in  a  lovely  dress  appear. 

Ere  yet  the  clouds  let  fall  the  treasured  snow, 

Or  winds  begun  through  hazy  skies  to  blow, 

At  evening  a  keen  eastern  breeze  arose, 

And  the  descending  rain  unsullied  froze. 

Soon  as  the  silent  shades  of  "night  withdrew, 

The  ruddy  noon  disclosed  at  once  to  view 

The  face  of  Nature  in  a  rich  disguise, 

And  brightened  every  object  to  my  eyes  ; 

For  every  shrub,  and  every  blade  of  grass, 

And  every  pointed  thorn,  seemed  wrought  in  glass ; 

In  pearls  and  rubies  rich  the  hawthorns  show, 

And  through  the  ice  the  crimson  berries  glow  ; 

The  thick-sprung  reeds,  which  watery  marshes  yield, 

Seem  polished  lances  in  a  hostile  field  ; 

The  stag  in  limpid  currents  with  surprise 

Sees  crystal  branches  on  his  forehead  rise  ; 

The  spreading  oak,  the  beech,  the  towering  pine, 

Glazed  over  in  the  freezing  ether  shine  ; 

The  frighted  birds  the  rattling  branches  shun, 

Which  wave  and  glitter  in  the  distant  sun, 

When,  if  a  sudden  gust  of  wind  arise, 

The  brittle  forest  into  atoms  flies, 

The  crackling  wood  beneath  the  tempest  bends 

And  in  a  spangled  shower  the  prospect  ends." 


A    GOOD   W011D    FOR   WINTER.        83 

It  is  not  uninstructive  to  see  how  tolerable 
Ambrose  is,  so  long  as  he  sticks  manfully 
to  what  he  really  saw.  The  moment  he 
undertakes  to  improve  on  Nature  he  sinks 
into  the  mere  court  poet,  and  we  surrender 
him  to  the  jealousy  of  Pope  without  a  sigh. 
His  "rattling  branches  "  and  "  crackling  for 
est  "  are  good,  as  truth  always  is  after  a  fash 
ion  ;  but  what  shall  we  say  of  that  dreadful 
stag  which,  there  is  little  doubt,  he  valued 
above  all  the  rest,  because  it  was  purely  his 
own  ? 

The  damper  snow  tempts  the  .amateur 
architect  and  sculptor.  His  Pentelicus f nas 
been  brought  to  his  very  door,  ancTi?  there 
are  boys  to  be  had  (wtiose  company  beats  all 
other  ^ecipes  for  rJrotonging  life)  a  middle- 
aged  Master  of  the  Works  will  knock  the 
years  off  his  account  and  make  the  faniily 
Bible  seem  a  dealer  in  foolish  fables,  by  a 
few  hours  given  heartily  to  this  business. 
First  comes  the  Sisyphean  toil  of  rolling  the 
clammy  balls  till  ^they  refuse  to  budge  far 
ther.  Then,  if  you  would  play  the  statuary, 
they  are  piled  one  upon  the  other  to  the 


84        A    GOOD    WORD    FOE   WINTEK. 

proper  height ;  or  if  your  aim  be  masonry, 
whether  of  house  or  fort,  they  must  be 
squared  and  beaten  solid  with  the  shovel. 
The  material  is  capable  of  very  pretty  effects, 
and  your  young  companions  meanwhile  ^are 
unconsciously  learning  lessons  in  :sestHetid& 
From  the  feeling  of  satisfaction  with  which 
one  squats  on  the  damp  floor  of  his  extem 
porized  dwelling,  I  have  been  led  to  think 
that  the  backwoodsman  must  get  a  sweeter 
savor  of  self-reliance  from  the  house  his  own^/^ 
hands  have  built  than  Bramante  or  Sdnso- 
vino  could  ever  give.  Perhaps  the  fort  is 
the  best  thing,  for  it  calls  out  more  mascu 
line  qualities  and  adds  the  cheer  of  battle 
with  that  dumb  artillery  which  gives  pain 
enough  to  test  pluck  without  risk  of  serious 
hurt.  Already,  as  I  write,  it  is  twenty-odd: 
years  ago.  The  balls  fly  thick  and  fast. 
The  uncle  defends  the  waist-high  ramparts 
against  a  storm  of  nephews,  his  breast  plas 
tered  with  decorations  like  another  Radet- 
sky's.  How  well  I  recall  the  indomitable" 
good-humor  under  fire  of  him  who  fell  in 
the  front  at  Ball's  Bluff,  the  silent  perti- 


A    GOOD    WORD    FOR    WINTER         85 

nacity  of  the  gentle  scholar  who  got  his  last 
hurt  at  Fair  Oaks,  the  ardor  in  the  charge  of 
the  gallant  gentleman  who,  with  the  death- 
wound  in  his  side,  headed  his  brigade  at 
Cedar  Creek !  How  it  all  comes  back,  and 
they  never  come  !  I  cannot  again  be  the 
Vauban  of  fortresses  in  the  innocent  snow, 
but  I  shall  never  see  children  moulding  their 
clumsy  giants  in  it  without  longing  to  help. 
It  was  a  pretty  fancy  of  the  young  Vegf&jffi 
sculptor  to  make  his  first  essay  in  this  eva 
nescent  material.  Was  it  a  figure  of  Youth,  I 
wonder  ?  Would  it  not  be  well  if  all  artists 
could  begin  in  stuff  as  perishable,  to  melt 
away  when  the  sun  of  prosperity  began  to 
shine,  and  leave  nothing  behind  but  the  gain 
of  practised  hands  ?  It  is  pleasant  to  fancy 
that  Shakespeare  served  his  apprenticeship  at 
this  trade,  and  owed  to  it  that  most  pathetic 
of  despairing  wishes,  — 

"  0,  that  I  were  a  mockery -king  of  snow, 
Standing  before  the  sun  of  Bojingbroke, 
To  melt  myself  away  in  water-drops  ! " 

I  have  spoken  of  the  exquisite  curves  of 
snow  surfaces.     Not  less  rare  are  the  tints  of 


86       A    GOOD    WORD    FOR    WINTER. 

which  they  are  capable,  —  the  faint  blue  of 
the  hollows,  for  the  shadows  in  snow  are 
always  blue,  and  the  tender  rose  of  higher 
points,  as  you  stand  with  your  back  to  the 
setting  sun  and  look  upward  across  the  soft 
rondure  of  a  hillside.  I  have  seen  within  a 
mile  of  home  effects  of  color  as  lovely  as 
any  iridescence  of  the  Silberhorn  after  sun 
down.  Charles  II.,  who  never  said  a  foolish 
thing,  gave  the  English  climate  the  highest 
praise  when  he  said  that  it  allowed  you  more 
hours  out  of  doors  than  any  other,  and  I 
think  our  winter  may  fairly  make  the  same 
boast  as  compared  with  the  rest  of  the  year. 
Its  still  mornings,  with  the  thermometer 
near  zero,  ^ut  a  premium  on  walking.  There 
is  more  sentiment  in  turf,  perhaps,  and  it  is 
more  elastic  to  the  foot ;  its  silence,  too,  is 
wellnigh  as  congenial  with  meditation  as  that 
of  fallen  pine^tasaaL;  but  for  exhilaration 
there  is  nothing  like  a  stiff  snow-crust  that 
creaks  like  a  cricket  at  every  step,  and  com 
municates  its  own  sparkle  to  the  senses. 
The  air  you  drink  is  /ra^jpV/all  its  grosser 
particles  precipitated,  and  the  dregs  of  your 


A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER.        87 

blood  with  them.  A  purer  current  mounts 
to  the  brain,  courses  sparkling  through  it, 
and  rinses  it  thoroughly  of  all  dejected  stuff. 
There  is  nothing  left  to  breed  an  exhalation 
of  ill-humor  or  despondency.  They  say  that 
this  rarefied  atmosphere  has  lessened  the 
capacity  of  our  lungs.  Be  it  so.  Quart-pots 
are  for  muddier  liquor  than  nectar.  To  me, 
the  city  in  winter  is  infinitely  dreary,  —  the 
sharp  street-corners  have  such  a  chill  in  them, 
and  the  snow  so  soon  loses  its  maidenhood 
to  become  a  mere  drab,  —  "  doing  shameful 
things,"  as  Steele  says  of  politicians,  "  with 
out  being  ashamed."  I  pine  for  the  Quaker 
purity  of  my  country  landscape.  I  am 
speaking,  of  course,  of  those  winters  that 
are  not  niggardly  o>r  snow,  as  ours  too  often 
are,  giving  us  a  gravelly  dust  instead.  Noth 
ing  can  be  unsightlier  than  thos'tf  piebald 
fields  where  the  coarse  brown  hide  of  Earth 
shows  through  the  holes  of  her  ragged 
ermine.  But  even  when  there  is  abundance 
of  snow,  I  find  as  I  grow  older  that  there 
are  not  so  many  good  crusts  as  there  used  to 
be.  When  I  first  observed  this,  I  rashly  set 


88       A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER. 

it  to  the  account  of  that  general  degeneracy 
in  nature  (  keeping  pace  with  the  same  mel 
ancholy  phenomenon  in  man )  which  forces 
itself  upon  the  attention  and  into  the  philos 
ophy  of  middle  life.  But  happening  once  to 
be  weighed,  it  occurred  to  me  that  an  arch 
which  would  bear  fifty  pounds  could  hardly 
be  blamed  for  giving  way  under  more  than 
three  times  the  weight.  I  have  sometimes 
thought  that  if  theologians  would  remember 
this  in  their  arguments,  and  consider  that  the 
man  may  slump  through,  with  no  fault  of 
his  own,  where  the  boy  would  have  skimmed 
the  surface  in  safety,  it  would  be  better  for 
all  parties.  However,  when  you  do  get  a 
crust  that  will  bear,  and  know  any  brooklet 
that  runs  down  a  hillside,  be  sure  to  go  and 
take  a  look  at  him,  especially  if  your  crust  is 
due,  as  it  commonly  is,  to  a  cold  snap  follow 
ing  eagerly  on  a  thaw.  You  will  never  find 
him  so  cheerful.  As  he  shrank  away  after 
the  last  thaw,  he  built  for  himself  the  most 
exquisite  caverns  of  ice  to  run  through,  if 
not  ''measureless  to  man"  like  those  of 
Alph,  the  sacred  river,  yet  perhaps  more 


A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER.        89 

pleasing  for  their  narrowness  than  those  for 
their  grandeur.  What  a  cunning  silversmith 
is  Frost !  The  rarest  workmanship  of  Delhi 
or  Genoa  copies  him  but  clumsily,  as  if  the 
fingers  of  all  other  artists  were  thumbs. 
Fernwork  and  lacework  and  filigree  in  end 
less  variety,  and  under  it  all  the  water  tin 
kles  like  a  distant  guitar,  or  drums  like  a^ 
tambourine,  or  gurgles  like  the  Tokay  of  an 
anchorite's  dream.  Beyond  doubt  there  is  a 
fairy  procession  inarching  along  those  frail 
arcades  and  translucent  corridors. 

"  Their  oaten  pipes  blow  wondrous  shrill, 
The  hemlock  small  blow  clear." 

And  hark !  is  that  the  ringing  of  Titania's 
bridle,  or  the  bells  of  the  wee,  wee  hawk 
that  sits  on  Oberon's  wrist  ?  This  wonder 
of  Frost's  handiwork  may  be  had  every  win 
ter,  but  he  can  do  better  than  this,  though 
I  have  seen  it  but  once  in  my  life.  There 
had  been  a  thaw  without  wind  or  rain,  mak 
ing  the  air  fat  with  gray  vapor.  Towards 
sundown  came  that  chill,  the  avant-courier 
of  a  northwesterly  gale.  Then,  though  there 


90       A   GOOD   WORD    FOR   WINTER. 

was  no  perceptible  current  in  the  atmos 
phere,  the  fog  began  to  attach  itself  in  frosty 
roots  and  filaments  to  the  southern  side  of 
every  twig  and  grass-stem.  The  very  posts 
had  poems  traced  upon  them  by  this  dumb 
minstrel.  Wherever  the  moist  seeds  found 
lodgment  grew  an  inch-deep  moss  fine  as 
cobweb,  a  slender  coral-reef,  argentine,  deli 
cate,  as  of  some  silent  sea  in  the  moon,  such 
as  Agassiz  dredges  when  he  dreams.  The 
frost,  too,  can  wield  a  delicate  graver,  and 
in  fancy  leaves  Piranesi  far  behind.  He 
covers  your  window-pane  with  Alpine  etch 
ings,  as  if  in  memory  of  that  sanctuary  where 
he  finds  shelter  even  in  midsummer. 

Now  look  down  from  your  hillside  across 
the  valley.  The  trees  are  leafless,- but  this 
is  the  season  to  study  their  anatomy,  and  did 
you  ever  notice  before  how  much  color  there 
is  in  the  twigs  of  many  of  them  ?  And  the 
smoke  from  those  chimneys  is  so  blue  it 
seems  like  a  feeder  of  the  sky  into  which  it 
flows.  Winter  refines  it  and  gives  it  agree 
able  associations.  In  summer  it  suggests 
cookery  or  the  drudgery  of  steam-engines, 


A    GOOD    WORD    FOE,    WINTER.        91 

but  now  your  fancy  (if  it  can  forget  for 
a  moment  the  dreary  usurpation  of  stoves) 
traces  it  down  to  the  fireside  and  the  bright 
ened  faces  of  children.  Thoreau  is  the  only 
poet  who  has  fitly  sung  it.  The  wood-cutter 
rises  before  day  and 

,  "  First  in  the  dusky  dawn  he  sends  abroad 
His  early  scout,  his  emissary,  smoke, 
The  earliest,  latest  pilgrim  from  his  roof, 
To  feel  the  frosty  air  ;  .... 
And,  while  lie  crouches  still  beside  the  hearth, 
Nor  musters  courage  to  unbar  the  door, 
It  has  gone  down  the  glen  with  the  light  wind 
And  o'er  the  plain  unfurled  its  venturous  wreath, 
Draped  the  tree-tops,  loitered  upon  the  hill, 
And  warmed  the  pinions  of  the  early  bird  ; 
And  now,  perchance,  high  in  the  crispy  air, 
Has  caught  sight  of  the  day  o'er  the  earth's  edge, 
And  greets  its  master's  eye  at  his  low  door 
As  some  refulgent  cloud  in  the  upper  sky." 

Here  is  very  bad  verse  and  very  good 
imagination.  He  had  been  reading  Words 
worth,  or  he  would  not  have  made  tree-tops 
an  iambus.  In  the  Moretum  of  Virgil  (or, 
if  not  his,  better  than  most  of  his)  is  a  pretty 
picture  of  a  peasant  kindling  his  winter- 
morning  fire.  He  rises  before  dawn, 


92        A    GOOD   WORD    FOR   WINTER. 

Sollicitaque  maim  tenebras  explorat  inertes 
Vestigatque  focum  Isesus  quern  deuique  sen  sit. 
Parvulus  exusto  remanebat  stipite  fumus, 
Et  cinis  obductse  celabat  lumina  pruna3. 
Admovet  his  pronam  submissa  fronte  lucernam, 
Et  producit  acu  stupas  humore  carentes, 
Excitat  et  crebris  languentem  flatibus  ignem  ; 
Tandem  concepto  tenebrse  fulgore  recedunt, 
Oppositaque  manu  lumen  defendit  ab  aura. 

With  cautious  hand  he  gropes  the  sluggish  dark, 
Tracking  the  hearth  which,  scorched,  he  feels  erelong. 
In  burnt-out  logs  a  slender  smoke  remained, 
And  raked-up  ashes  hid  the  cinders'  eyes  ; 
Stooping,  to  these  the  lamp  outstretched  he  nears^ 
And,  with  a  needle  loosening  the  dry  wick, 
With  frequent  breath  excites  the  languid  flame. 
Before  the  gathering  glow  the  shades  recede, 
And  his  bent  hand  the  new-caught  light  defends. 

Ovid  heightens  the  picture  by  a  single 
touch  :  — 

Ipse  genu  poito  flammas  exsuscitat  aura. 
Kneeling,  his  breath  calls  back  to  life  the^ames. 

If  you  walk  down  now  into  the  woods, 
you  may  find  a  robin  or  a  bluebird  among 
the  red-cedars,  or  a  nuthatch  scaling  devi- 


A    GOOD   WORD    FOR   WINTER.        93 

* 

ously  tlie  trunk  of  some  hardwood  tree  with 
an  eye  as  keen  as  that  of  a  French  soldier 
foraging  for  the  p&t-au-feu  of  his  mess. 
Perhaps  a  blue-jay  shrills  cah  cah  in  his 
corvine  trebles,  or  a  chickadee 

"Shows  feats  of  his  gymnastic  play, 
Head  downward,  clinging  to  the  spray." 

But  both  him  and  the  snow-bird  I  love 
better  to  see,  tiny  fluffs  of  feathered  life,  as 
they  scurry  about  in  a  driving  mist  of  snow, 
than  in  this  serene  air. 

Coleridge  has  put  into  verse  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  phenomena  of  a  winter 
walk  :  — 

"The  woodman  winding  westward  up  the  glen 
At  wintry  dawn,  where  o'er  the  sheep-track's  maze 
The  viewless  snow-mist  weaves  a  glistening  haze, 
Sees  full  before  him,  gliding  without  tread, 
An  image  with  a  halo  round  its  head. " 

But  this  aureole  is  not  peculiar  to  winter, 
I  have  noticed  it  often  in  a  summer  morn- 
ing,  when  the  grass  was  heavy  with  dew, 
and  even  later  in  the  (lav,  when  the  dewless 


94       A    GOOD   WORD    FOR   WINTER. 

grass  was  still  fresh  enough  to  have  a  gleam 
of  its  own. 

For  my  own  part  I  prefer  a  winter  walk 
that  take 'in  the  nightfall  and  the  intense 
silence  that  erelong  follows  it.  The  evening 
lamps  look  yellower  by  contrast  with  the 
snow,  and  give  the  windows  that  hearty 
look  of  which  our  secretive  fires  have  almost 
robbed  them.  The  stars  seem 

' '  To  hang,  like  twinkling  winter  lamps, 
Among  the  branches  of  the  leafless  trees," 

or,  if  you  are  on  a  hill-top  (whence  it  is 
sweet  to  watch  the  home-lights  gleam  out 
one  by  one),  they  look  nearer  than  in 
summer,  and  appear  to  take  a  conscious  part 
in  the  cold.  Especially  in  one  of  those 
stand-stills  of  the  air  that  forebode  a  change 
of  weather,  the  sky  is  dusted  with  motes  of 
fire  of  which  the  summer-watcher  never 
dreamed.  Winter,  too,  is,  on  the  whole,  the 
triumphant  season  of  the  moon,  a  moon 
devoid  of  sentiment,  if  you  choose,  but 
with  the  refreshment  of  a  purer  intellectual 
light,  —  the  cooler  orb  of  middle  life.  Who 


A    GOOD    WORD    FOR    WINTER.        95 

ever  saw  anything  to  match  that  gleam, 
rather  divined  than  seen,  which  runs  before 
her  over  the  snow,  a  breath  of  light,  as  she 
rises  on  the  infinite  silence  of  winter  night  ? 
High  in  the  heavens,  also  she  seems  to  bring 
out  some  intenser  property  of  cold  with  her 
chilly  polish.  The  poets  have  instinctively 
noted  this.  When  Goody  Blake  imprecates 
a  curse  of  perpetual  chill  upon  Harry  Gill, 
she  has 

"The  cold,  cold  moon  above  her  head"; 
and  Coleridge  speaks  of 

"The  silent  icicles, 
Quietly  gleaming  to  the  quiet  moon." 

As  you  walk  homeward,  —  for  it  is  time 
that  we  should  end  our  ramble,  —  you  may 
perchance  hear  the  most  impressive  sound 
in  nature,  unless  it  be  the  fall  of  a  tree  in 
the  forest  during  the  hush  of  summer  noon. 
It  is  the  stifled  shriek  of  the  lake  yonder 
as  the  frost  throttles  it.  Wordsworth  has 
described  it  (too  much,  I  fear,  in  the  style 
of  Dr.  Armstrong)  :  — 


96        A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER. 

"And,  interrupting  oft  that  eager  game, 
From  under  Esthwaite's  splitting  fields  of  ice, 
The  pent-np  air,  struggling  to  free  itself, 
Gave  out  to  meadow-grounds  and  hills  a  loud 
Protracted  yelling,  like  the  noise  of  wolves 
Howling  in  troops  along  the  Bothnicmain." 

Thoreau  (unless  the  English  lakes  have  a 
different  dialect  from  ours)  calls  it  admirably 
well  a  "  whoop."  But  it  is  a  noise  like  none 
other,  as  if  Demogorgon  were  moaning  in 
articulately  from  under  the  earth.  Let  us 
get  within  doors,  lest  we  hear  it  again,  for 
there  is  something  bodeful  and  uncanny 
in  it. 


Presently  our  hunter  came  back.' 


A   MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL. 


CONTENTS. 


Page 


A  MOOSEHEAD  JOURNAL 


AT   SEA 


75 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 

"  Presently  our  hunters  came  back "      .        .      Frontispiece. 

Page 
"  <  Wahl,  't  ain't  ushil,'  said  he  " 33 

"  We  sat  round  and  ate  thankfully  "  .        .        .        .         49 
"  He  had  begun  upon  a  second  bottle  "  .        .        .        .55 


A  MOOSEHEAD  JOURNAL. 

Addressed  to  the  Edelmann  Storg  at  the  Bagni  di 
Lucca. 

jHURSDAY,  llth  August.— I  knew 
as  little  yesterday  of  the  interior  of 
Maine  as  the  least  penetrating  person 
knows  of  the  inside  of  that  great  social  mill 
stone  which,  driven  by  the  river  Time,  sets 
imperatively  agoing  the  several  wheels  of  our 
individual  activities.  Born  while  Maine  was 
still  a  province  of  native  Massachusetts,  I  was 
as  much  a  foreigner  to  it  as  yourself,  my  dear 
Storg.  I  had  seen  many  lakes,  ranging  from 
that  of  .Tipgil's  Cumsean  to  that  of  ScpttV 
JUaieaoniaii  Lady  ;  but' ttopsehea^,  j ithiii  i wo~ ^ 
days  of  me,  had  never  enjoyed  the  profit  of 
being  mirrored  in  my  retina.  At  the  sound  of 
the  name,  no  reminiscential  atoms  (according 


12  A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL. 

to  Kenelm  Digby's  Theory  of  Association,  — 
as  good  as  any)  stirred  and  marshalled  them 
selves  in  my  brain.  The  truth  is,  we  think 
lightly  of  Nature's  penny  shows,  and  estimate 
what  we  see  by  the  cost  of  the  ticket.  Em- 
pedocles  gave  his  life  for  a  pit-entrance  to 
r A  ^Etna,  and  no  doubt  found  his  account  in  it. 
Accordingly,  the  clean  face  of  Cousin  Bull  is 

imaged   patronizingly  iii   Lake    George, -and     «, 

*s          °£J  Kfa  r~  <%>&'*£*  '.<f,zO?  £VtVf^a* 

Loch  Lomona  glasses  the  hurried  countenance  u^ 

r  tp^f^tTonathan,  diving  deeper  in  the  streams  of  ^  ^ 
\  tTi  ^ur°Pean  association  (and  coming  up   drier)  fc* 
^  l^  than  any  other  man.     Or  is  the  cause  of  ourr^r 
not  caring  to  see  what  is  equally  within  the 
reach  of  all  our  neighbors  to  be  sought  in  that 
aristocratic  principle  so   deeply  implanted  in 
human'  nature  ?     I  knew  a  pauper   graduate 
who  always  borrowed  a  black  coat,  and  came 
.-to  eat  the  Commencement  dinner,  —  not  that 
•£  »    it  was  better  than  the  one  which  daily  graced 
the  board  of  the  public  institution  in  which  he 
hibernated  (so  to  speak)  during  the  other  three 
hundred  and  sixty-four  days  of  the  year,  save 
in  this  one  particular,  that  none  of  his  elee 
mosynary  fellow-commoners  could  eat  it.     If 
^^    fr^\&-*  I£%A,    tr*\     <£A*tv/&y'  c*~-  &t&/\£- 


A   MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL.  13 

there   are  unhappy  men  who  wish  that  they 
were  as  the  Babe  Unborn,  there  are  more  who 
would  aspire  to  the  lonely  distinction  of  being 
that   other  figurative   personage,    the  Oldest 
Inhabitant.     You  remember  the  charming  ir 
resolution  of  our  dear  Estkwaite,  (like  Ma(>^.v 
heath  between  his  two  doxies,)  .divided  between  ^ 
his  theory  that  he  is  unoef  thirty;  and  his  pride  \. 
at  being  the  only  one  of  us  who  witnessed  the  lVi? 
September  gale  and  the  rejoicings  at  the  Peace?  d2fi 
Nineteen  years  ago  I  was  walking  through  the  9 
Franconia  Notch,  and  stopped  to  chat  with  a  d*& 
hermit,  who   fed  with  gradual   logs  the  un 
wearied  teeth  of  a  saw-mill.     As  the  panting 
steel  slit  off  the  slabs  of  the  log,  so  did  the  less 
willing  machine  of  talk,  acquiring  a  steadier 
up-and-down  motion,  pare  away  that  outward 
bark  of  conversation  which  protects  the  core, 
and  which,  like  other  bark,  has  naturally  most 
to  do  with  the  weather,  the  season,  and  the 
heat  of  the  day,     At  length  I  asked  him  the 
best  point  of  view  for  the.  Old  Man  of  the 

Mountain.  ~<  ^^^j6^£^^  $jL^  ' — 
"  Dunno,  —  never'  see  it/i^*  ^^^.o^.        fa.  \*L< 
Too  young  and  too  happy vef?her  io  feel  or  ^ 


14  A   MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL. 

affect  the  Juvenalian  indifference,,  I  was  sin 
cerely  astonished,  and  I  expressed  it. 

The  log-compelling  man  attempted  no  justi 
fication,  but  after  a  little  asked,  "  Come  from 
Bawsn?" 

"  Yes  "  (with  peninsular  pride). 

"  Goodie  to  see  in  the  vycinity  o'  Bawsn." 

"  0  yes  ! "  I  said,  and  I  thought,  —  see 
Boston  and  die  !  see  the  State  Houses,  old 
and  new,  the  caterpillar  wooden  bridges  crawl 
ing  with  innumerable  legs  across  the  flats  of 
Charles  ;  see  the  Common,  —  largest  park, 
doubtless,  in  the  world,  —  with  its  files  of  trees 
planted  as  if  by  a  drill-sergeant,  and  then  for 
your  nunc  dimittis  I 

"  I  should  like,  'awl,  I  should  like  to  stan, 
on  Bunker  Hill.  You've  ben  there  offen, 
likely  ? " 

"N — o — o,"  unwillingly,  seeing  the  little 
end  of  the  horn  in  clear  vision  at  the  terminus 
of  this  Socratic  perspective. 

"'Awl,  my  young  frien',  you  've  larned 
neow  thet  wut  a  man  kin  see  any  day  for 
nawthin',  childern  half  price,  he  never  doos 
see.  Nawthin'  pay,  nawthin'  vally." 


A   MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL.  15 

With  this  modern  instance  of  a  wise  saw,  I 
departed,  deeply  revolving  these  things  with 
myself,  and  convinced  that,  whatever  the  ratio 
of  population,  the  average  amount  of  human 
nature  to  the  square  mile  is  the  same  the  world 
over.  I  thought  of  it  when  I  sa^wjpeople  upon 
the  Pincian  wondering  at  the  Alchemist  sun,  ^ 
as  if  he  never  burned  the  leaden  clouds  to 


!d  in  sight  of  Charles  Street.     I  thought  of  > 
it  when  I  found  eyes  first  discovering  at  Montri--^ 
Blaiic  how  beautiful  snow  was.     As  I  walked  J 
on,  I  said  to  myself,  There  is  one  exception,       \  t 
.wise  hermit,  —  it  is  just  these  gratis  pictures 
which  the  poet  puts  in  his  show-box,  and  which 
*+k'jtQ  aH  g^dly  PaJ  Wordsworth  and  the  rest  for 
4-rt*#  peep  at.     The  divine  faculty  is  to  see  what 
•  Everybody  can  look  at. 

While  every  well-informed  man  in  Europe, 
from  the  barber  down  to  the  diplomatist,  has  ^ 
his  view  of  the  Eastern  Question",  why  should 
I  not  go  personally  down  East  and  see  for  my-  v 
s^lf?      Why  not,  likeTTancred,  attempt  nW 
'  own  solution  of  the  Mystery  of  the  'Orient;—  r 


mysterious  when  you  begin  the  two*""' 
words  with  capitals?     You  know  my  way  of  ^r 


16  A   MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL. 

doing  things,  to  let  them  simmer  in  my  mind 
gently  for  months,  and  at  last  do  them  im 
promptu  in  a  kind  of  desperation,  driven  by  the 
[^gumenides  of  unfulfilled  purpose.  So,  after 
•  talking  about  Moosehead  till  nobody  believed 
e  capable  of  going  thither,  I  found  myself  at 
e  Eastern  Railway  station.  The  only  event 
the  journey  hither  (I  am  now  at  Waterville) 
l  was"  a  boy  hawking  exhilaratingly  the  last  great  . 
railroad  smash,  —  thirteen  lives  lost,  —  and  no 
doubt  devoutly  wishing  there  had  been  fifty. 
This  having  a  mercantile  interest  in  horrors, 
holding  stock,  as  it  were,  in  murder,  misfortune, 
and  pestilence,  must  have  an  odd  effect  on  the 
human  mind.  The  birds  of  ill-omen,  at  whose 
sombre  flight  the  rest  of  the  world  turn  pale, 
are  the  ravens  which  bring  food  to  this  little 
outcast  in  the  wilderness.  If  this  lad  give 
thanks  for  daily  bread,  it  would  be  curious  to 
inquire  what  that  phrase  represents  to  his  un 
derstanding.  If  there  ever  be  a  plum  in  it,  it 
is  Sin  or  Death  that  puts  it  in.  Other  details 
of  my  dreadful  ride  I  will  spare  you.  Suffice 
it  that  I  arrived  here  in  safety,  —  in  complexion 
like  an  Ethiopian  serenader  half  got-up,  and  so 


A   MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL.  17 

broiled  and  peppered  that  I  was  more  like  a  dev 
illed  kidney  than  anything  else  I  can  think  of. 
10  P.  M.  — The  civil  landlord  and  neat  cham 
ber  at  the  "Elm wood  House"  were  very  grate 
ful,  and  after  tea  I  set  forth  to  explore  the 
town.  It  has  a  good  chance  of  being  pretty ; 
but,  like  most  American  towns,  it  is  in  a  holp'Z 
bledehoy  age,  growing  yet,  and  one  cannot  tell-4 
what  may  happen.  A  child  with  great  promise 
of  beauty  is  often  spoiled  by  its  second  teeth. 
There  is  something  agreeable  in  the  sense  of 
completeness  which  a  walled  town  gives  one. 
It  is  entire,  like  a  crystal,  —  a  work  which 
man  has  succeeded  in  finishing.  I  think  the 
human  mind  pines  more  or  less  where  every 
thing  is  new,  and  is  better  for  a  diet  of  stale 
bread.  The  number  of  Americans  who  visit 
the  Old  World  is  beginning  to  afford  matter  of 
speculation  to  observant  Europeans,  and  the 
deep  inspirations  with  which  they  breathe  the 
air  of  antiquity,  as  if  their  mental  lungs  had 
been  starved  with  too  thin  an  atmosphere. 
Por  my  own  part,  I  never  saw  a  house  which 
I  thought  old  enough  to  be  torn  down.  It  is 
too  like  that  Scythian  fashion  of  knocking  old 


18  A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL. 

people  on  the  head.     I  cannot  help  thinking 

that  the  indefinable  something  whiph  we  call 
.    ^Uvf^^^^'tf/o-^^y 
character  is  cumulative,  —that  \m  influence 

of  the  same  climate,  scenery,  and  associations 
for  several  generations  is  necessary  to  its  gath 
ering  head,  and  that  the  process  is  disturbed 
by  continual  change  of  place.  The  American 
is  nomadic  in  religion,  in  ideas,  in  morals,  and 
leaves  his  faith  and  opinions  with  as  much  in 
difference  as  the  house  in  which  he  was  born. 
However,  we  need  not  bother :  Nature  takes 
care  not  to  leave  ont  of  the  great  heart  of  so 
ciety  either  of  its  two  ventricles  of  hold-back 
and  go-ahead. 

It  seems  as  if  every  considerable  American 
town  must  have  its  one  specimen  of  every 
thing,  and  so  there  is  a  college  in  Waterville, 
the  buildings  of  which  are  three  in  number, 
of  brick,  and  quite  up  to  the  average  ugliness 
which  seems  essential  in  edifices  of  this  de 
scription.  Unhappily,  they  do  not  reach  that 
extreme  of  ugliness  where  it  and  beauty  come 
together  in  the  clasp  of  fascination.  We  erect 
handsomer  factories  for  cottons,  woollens,  and 
steam -engines,  than  for  doctors,  lawyers,  aiid 


A   MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL.  19 

parsons.  The  truth  is,  that,  till  our  struggle 
with  nature  is  over,  till  this  shaggy  hemi 
sphere  is  tamed  and  subjugated,  the  workshop 
will  be  the  college  whose  degrees  will  be  most 
valued.  Moreover,  steam  has  made  travel  so 
easy  that  the  great  university  of  the  world  is 
open  to  all  comers,  and  the  old  cloister,  "sys-^y^ 
tern  is  falling  astern. :  Perhaps  it  is  only  the 
more  needed,  and,  were  I  rich,  I  should  like 
to  found  a  few.  lazyships  in  my  Alma  Matei^  * 
as  a  kind  of  cmfnTefpoiseT"  The  Anglo-Saxon 
...race  has  accepted  the  primal  curse  as  a  bless- 

y*     ing,  has   deified  work,  amT  would  not   have 

thanked  Adam  for  abstaining  from  the  apple. 

They   would  have   dammed   the    four    rivers 

-of  Paradise,  substituted  cotton  for  fig-leaves 

•  'Among  the  antediluvian  populations,  and  com- 

yd*  mended  man's  first'  disobedience  as  a  wise 
measure  of  political  economy.  But  to  return 
to  our  college.  We  cannot  have  fine  build 
ings  till  we  are  less  in  a  hurry.  We  snatch 
an  education  like  a  meal  at  a  railroad-station. 
Just  in  time  to  make  us  dyspeptic,  the  whistle 
shrieks,  and  we  must  rush,  or  loss  our  places 
in  the  great  train  of  life.  Yet  noble  architect 


20  A   MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL. 

ture  is  one  element  of  patriotism,  and  an  emi 
nent  one  of  culture,  the  finer  portions  of 
which  are  taken  in  by  unconscious  absorption 
through  the  pores  of  the  mind  from  the  sur 
rounding  atmosphere.  I  suppose  we  must  a 

/^l-w-\         -€r"  VV^    ^     *•*'*    /V  "*  *      t   "****  9l' 

wait,  for  we  are  a  great  bivouac  as  yet  rather^^ 
than  a  nation, — on  the  march  from  the  At- ^ 
lantic  to  the  Pacific,  —  and  pitch  tents  instead  ' 
of  building  houses.     Our  very  villages  seem  ;l 
to  be  in  motion,  following  westward  the  be 
witching  music  of  some  Pied  Piper  of  Hame- 
lin.     We  still  feel  the  great  push  toward 
down  given  to  the  peoples  somewhere  in  the  \ 
gray  dawn  of  history.     The  cliff-swallow  alone 
of  all  animated  nature  emigrates  eastward. 

Friday,  Y&th.  —  The  coach  leaves  Water-/ 
ville  at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  one--; 
must  breakfast  in  the  dark  at  a  quarter  past  J> 
four,  because  a  train  starts  at  twenty  minutes^ 

before  five,  —  the  passengers  by  botji  conyey-^x 

\rf~-  <*•  •C-'^H/I^,^  t£      rVs!' 
ances   being   pastured   gregariously:     So  one^y 

must  be  up  at  half  past  three.     The  primary '.'.'. 
geological  formations  contain  no  trace  of  man,;: 
^^J^and  it  seems  to  me  that  these  eocene  periods' 
of  the  day  are  not  fitted  for  sustaining  the 


A   MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL.  21 

human  forms  of  life.  One  of  the  Fathers  held 
that  the  sun  was  created  to  be  worshipped  at 
his  rising  by  the  Gentiles.  The  more  reason 
that  Christians  (except,  perhaps,  early  Chris 
tians)  should  abstain  from  these  heathenish 
ceremonials.  As  one  arriving  by  an  early 
train  is  welcomed  by  a  drowsy  maid  with  the 
sleep  scarce  brushed  out  of  her  hair,  and 
finds  empty  grates  and  polished  mahogany,  on 
whose  arid  plains  the  pioneers  of  breakfast 
have  not  yet  encamped,  so  a  person  waked 
thus  unseasonably  is  sent  into  the  world  before 
his  faculties  are  up  and  dressed  to  serve  him. 
It  might  have  been  for  this  reason  that  my 
stomach  resented  for  several  hours  a  piece  of 
fried  beefsteak  which  I  forced  upon  it,  or, 
more  properly  speaking,  a  piece  of  that  leath 
ern  conveniency  which  in  these  regions  as 
sumes  the  name.  You  will  find  it  as  hard 
to  believe,  my  dear  Storg,  as  that  quarrel  of 
-  /the  Sorbonists,  whether  one  should  say  ego 
'*)£m<tt  or  no,  that  the  use  of  the  gridiron  is 
unknown  hereabout,  and  so  near  a  river" 
named  after  St.  Lawrence,  too! 

To-day  has  been  the  hottest  day  of  th 


22  A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL. 

son,  yet  our  drive  lias  not  been  unpleasant. 
Eor  a  considerable  distance  we  followed  the 
course  of  tlie  Sebasticook  River,  a  pretty 
stream  with  alternations  of  dark  brown  pools 
and  wine-colored  rapids.  Oil  eacli  side  of  the 
road  the  land  had  been  cleared,  and  little  one- 
story  farm-houses  were  scattered  at  intervals. 
But  the  stumps  still  held  out  in  most  of  the 
fields,  and  the  tangled  wilderness  closed  iy 
behind,  striped  here  and  there  with  the  slim 
white  trunks  of  the  elm.  As  yet  only  the 
edges  of  the  great  forest  have  been  nibbled 
away.  Sometimes  a  root-fence  stretched  up 
its  bleaching  antlers,  like  the  trophies  of  a 
giant  hunter.  Now  and  then  the  houses 
thickened  into  an  unsocial-looking  village,  and 
we  drove  up  to  the  grocery  to  leave  and  take 
a  mail -bag,  stopping  again  presently  to  water 
the  horses  at  some  pallid  little  tavern,  whose 
one  red-curtained  eye  (the  bar-room)  had  been 
put  out  by  the  in.exoraj)le  ^thrust  of  Maiiiel • 
Law.  Had  Slienstone7  travelled  this  road,  he 
would  never  have  written  that  famous  stanza 
of  his  ;  had  Johnson,  he  would  never  have 
quoted  it.  They  are  to  real  inns  as  the  skull 


A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL.  23 

\ 

of  Yorick  to  his  face.  Where  these  villages 
occurred  at  a  distance  from  the  river,  it  was 
difficult  to  account  for  them.  Qa.  the  river- 
bank,  a  saw-mill  or  a  tannery  served  as  a  logi 
cal  premise,  and  saved  them  from  total  incon- 
sequentiality.  As  we  trailed  along,  at  the 
rate  of  about  four  miles  an  hour,  it  was  dis 
covered  that  one  of  our  mail-bags  was  missing. 
"  Guess  somebody  '11  pick  it  up,"  said  the 
driver  coolly:  "'tany  rate,  likely  there's 
nothin'  in  it."  Who  knows  how  long  it  took 
some  Elam  D.  or  Zebulon  K.  to  compose  the 
missive  intrusted  to  that  vagrant  bag,  and 
how  much  longer  to  persuade  Pamela  Grace 
or  Sophronia  Melissa  that  it  had  really  and 
truly  been  written  ?  The  discovery  of  our 
loss  was  made  by  a  tall  man  who  sat  next  to 
me  on  the  top  of  the  coach,  every  one  of 
whose  senses  seemed  to  be  prosecuting  its 
several  investigation  as  we  went  along.  Pres 
ently,  sniffing  gently,  he  remarked:  "Tears 
to  me  }s  though  I  smelt  sunthiu'.  Ain't  the 
aix  het,  think  ?  "  The  driver  pulled  up,  and, 
sure  enough,  the  off  fore-wheel  was  found 
to  be  smoking.  In  three  minutes  lie  had 


24  A    MOOSEHEAI)    JOURNAL. 

snatched  a  rail  from  the  fence,  made  a  lever, 
raised  the  coach,  and  taken  off  the  wheel, 
bathing  the  hot  axle  and  box  with  water  from 
the  river.  It  was  a  pretty  spot,  and  I  was 
not  sorry  to  lie  under  a  beech -tree  (Tityrus- 
like,  meditating  over  my  pipe)  and  watch  the 
operations  of  the  fire-annihilator.  I  could  not 
help  contrasting  the  ready  helpfulness  of  our 
driver,  all  of  whose  wits  were  about  him,  cur 
rent,  and  redeemable  in  the  specie  of  action  on 
emergency,  with  an  incident  of  travel  in  Italy, 
where,  under  a  somewhat  similar  stress  of  cir 
cumstances,  our  vetturino  had  nothing  for  it 
but  to  dash  his  hat  on  the  ground  and  call  on 
— -  Sant'  Antonio,  the  Italian  Hercules. 

( 'U  .     There  being  four  passengers  for  the  Lake, 

'IT" vehicle   called  a  mud-wagon   was   detailed 

at  Newport  for  our  accommodation.     In  this 

we  jolted  and  rattled  along  at  a  livelier  pace 

.than  in  the  coach.     As  we  got  farther  north, 

u>  <  the  country  (especially  the  hills)  gave  evi 
dence  of  longer  cultivation.  About  the  thriv 
ing  town  of  Dexter  we  saw  fine  farms  and 
crops.  The  houses,  too,  became  prettier; 
hop-vines  were  trained  about  the  doors,  and 


A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL.  25 


hung  their  clustering  thym  over  the  open 
windows.  A  kind  of  wiTd  rose  (called  by 
the  country  folk  the  primrose)  and  asters  were 
planted  about  the  door-yards,  and  orchards, 
commonly  of  natural  fruit,  added  to  the  pleas 
ant  home-look.  But  everywhere  we  could 
see  that  the  war  between  the  white  man  and 
the  forest  was  still  fierce,  and  that  it  would 
be  a  long  while  yet  before  the  axe  was  buried. 
The  haying  being  over,  fires  blazed  or  smoul 
dered  against  the  stumps  in  the  fields,  and  the 
blue  smoke  widened  slowly  upward  through 
the  quiet  August  atmosphere.  It  seemed  to 
me  that  I  could  hear  a  sigh  now  and  then 
from  the  immemorial  pines,  as  they  stood 
watching  these  camp-fires  of  the  inexorable 
invader.  Evening  set  in,  and,  as  we  crunched 
and  crawled  up  the  long  gravelly  hills,  I  some 
times  began  to  fancy  that  Nature  had  forgot 
ten  to  make  the  corresponding  descent  on 
the  other  side.  But  erelong  we  were  rushing 
down  at  full  speed  ;  and,  inspired  by  the 
dactylic  beat  of  the  horses'  hoofs,  I  essayed 
to  repeat  the  opening  lines  of  Evangeline. 
At  the  moment  I  was  beginning,  we  plunged 


26  A    MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL. 

into  a  hollow,  where  the  soft  clay  had  been 
overcome  by  a  road  of  unhewn  logs.  I  got 
through  one  line  to  this  corduroy  accompani 
ment,  somewhat  as  a  country  choir  stretches 
a  short  metre  on  the  Procrustean  rack  of  a  long- 
drawn  tune.  The  result  was  like  this  :  — 

"  Thihis  ihis  thehe  fohorest  prihihimeheval ;  thehe 
murhurmuring  pihiues  hahand  thehe  hehern- 
lohocks !  " 

At  a  quarter  past  eleven,  p.  M.,  we  reached 
Greenville,  (a  little  village  which  looks  as  if  it 
:-  ^  had  dripped  down  from  the  hills,  and  settled 
in  the  hollow  at  the  foot  of  the  lake,)  having 
accomplished  seventy-two  miles  in  eighteen 
hours.  The  tavern  was  totally  extinguished. 
The  driver  rapped  upon  the  bar-room  window, 
and  after  a  while  we  saw  heat-lightnings  of  un 
successful  matches  followed  by  a  low  grumble 
of  vocal  thunder,  which  I  am  afraid  took  the 

£-<_•!*        ^     0 

^jf  imprecation.  Presently  there  was  a 
vgreat  success,  and  the  steady^  blur  of  lighted 
tallow  succeeded  the  fugitive  ''brilliance  of  the 
pine.  A  hostler  fumbled  the  door  open,  and 
stood  staring  at  but  not  seeing  us,  with  the 


A   MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL.  27 


sleep  sticking  out,alj  over  him.     We  at  last 
contrived  to  launch  -turn  more  like  an  insensi- 


e  Inissile  than  an  ififelTigmit  or   intelligible^'^ 
.«.  being,  at  the  slumbering  landlord,  who  came 
-  t)iit  wide-awake,  and  welcomed  us  as  so  many 
^^j  half-dollars,  —  twenty-five  cents  each  for  bed, 
ditto   breakfast.      0    Shenstone,    Shenstone  ! 

,Vf  •-<?<—•/  ___  .  _  _^_  ___  _^_  _____  - 

^•H^-Tlie  only  roost  was  in  the  garret,  which  had 
been  made  into  a  single  room,  and  contained 
eleven  double-beds,  ranged  along  the  walls. 
It  was  like  sleeping  in  a  hospital.  However, 
nice  c'ustorns  cGjtsy  to  eighteen-nour  rides,  and 
we  slept,  * 

Saturday,  13M.  —  This  morning  I  performed 
my  toilet  in  the  bar-room,  where  there  was  an 
abundant  supply  of  water,  and  a  lialo^of  inter 
ested  spectators.  After  a  sufficient  breakfast, 
we  embarked  on  the  little  steamer  Moosehead, 
and  were  soon  throbbing  up  the  lake.  The 
boat,  it  appeared,  had  been  chartered  by  a 
party,  this  not  being  one  of  her  regular  trips. 
Accordingly  we  were  muEESm  twice  the 
usual  fee,  the  philosophy  of  which  I  could  not 
understand.  However,  it  always  comes  easier 
to  us  to  comprehend  why  we  receive  than  why 


28  A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL. 

we  pay.  I  dare  say  it  was  quite  clear  to  the 
captain.  There  were  three  or  four  clearings 
on  the  western  shore  ;  but  after  passing  these,  - 


r  pass 
vat  a 


the  lake  became  wholly  pnmevaVand  looked 
to  us  as  it  did  to  the  first  adventurous  French 
man  who  paddled  across  it.  Sometimes  a 
cleared  point  would  be  pink  with  the  blossom- 

' "  iiig  wtllow-herb,  "  a  cheap  an(J-  excellent 
<*"  JtJZc*  >  V1  *;'  o       c  «-*••  "•  " 
.••/jtitute  "  for  Ueafnei'/and/'  like  an  such, 

biL&Jquifo  so'  good  as  the  real  thing.  On  all  sides 
^/^rose  deep-blue  mountains  of  remarkably  grace 
ful  outline,  and  more  fortunate  than  common 
in  their  names.  There  were  the  Big  and  Little 
Squaw,  the  Spencer  and  Lily -bay  Mountakis. 
It  was  debated  whether  we  saw  ETaiafiain  or 
not  (perhaps  more  useful  as  an  intellectual*' 
exercise  than  the  assured  vision  would  have 
been),  and  presently  Mount  Kineo  rose  ab 
ruptly  before  us,  in  shape  not  unlike  the  island 
of  'Capri.  Mountains  are  called  great  natural 
/,  features,  and  why  they  should  not  retain  their 

tf**£^y£UIies  ^0118'  euou8'h  f°r  them  also  to  become 
7^V. naturalized,  it  is   hard  to  say.     Why  should 
every  new  surveyor  rechristen  them  with  the 
y-  //gubernatorial  patronymics  of  (he  current  year 


OSEHEAD    JOURNAL.  *  |2tf 

They   are  geological  noses,  "and,  as  they  tare    /" 
or  pug,  indicate   terrestrial  idiosyn-6/ 
^><3osmical   physiognomist,    after  a  ~ 

glance  at  them,  will  draw  no  vague  inference  A* 


j  as  to  the  character  of  the  country.  The  w 
tlose  *s  no  Better  than  anv  other  word;  but  L- 
since  the  organ  has  got  that  name,  it  is  con 
venient  to  keep  it.  Suppose  we  had  to  label 
our  facial  prominences  every  season  with  the 
name  of  our  provincial  governor,  how  should 
we  like  it  ?  If  the  old  names  have  no  other 
meaning,  they  have  that  of  age  ;  and,  after  all, 
meaning  is  a  plant  of  slow  growth,  as  every 
reader  of  Shakespeare  knows.  It  is  well 
enough  to  call  mountains  after  their  discover 
ers,  for  Nature  has  a  knack  of  throwing  doub-^"* 
lets,  and  somehow  contrives  it  that  discoverers 
have  good  names.  Pike's  Peak  is  a  curious 
hit  in  this  way.  But  these  surveyors'  names 


.      have  no  natural  stick  in  them.     They  remind 
'•L  one*  of  'the  epithets  of  poetasters,/wfitct/j5eel  'o 


, 


'like   a   badly   gummed    postage-stamp. 


ff  ^ 


early  settlers  did  better,  and  there  is  some-^  t 

d^, 


^f 

thing  pleasant  in  the  sound  of  Graylock,  Sad 


dleback,  and  Great  Hay  stack  .-^^.^V-f/. 

' 


30  A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL. 

"  1  love  those  names 
Wherewith  the  exiled  farmer  tames 
Nature  down  to  companionship 

With  his  old  world's  more  homely  mood, 
And  strives  the  shaggy  wild  to  clip 

With  arms  of  familiar  hahitude." 

/^ylt  is  possible  that  Mount  Marcy  and  Mount    « 
*'  *p  Hitchcock  may  sound  as  well  hereafter  as  Hel-cx,™ 

'""lespoiit  avid— Peloponnesus,  when  the  heroes,^ 
/  -  their  namesakes,  have  become  mythic  with  an-. /^ 
?«.-,. ^iquity.     But  that  is  to  look  forward  a 

way.     I  am  no  fanatic  for  Indian  nomencla 
ture,  —  the  name  of  my  native  district  having  * 
been  Pigsgusset,  —  but  let  us  at  least  agree 
on  names  for  ten  years.  ^^//•.;V-^W 
sjtoB    There  were  a  couple  of  loggers  on  board, 
in  red  flannel  shirts,  and  with  rifles.      They 
were  the  first  I  had  seen,  and  I  was  interesteckj 
appearance.      They  were   tall, 
,  straight  as~Hobin  Hood,  and  with  a< 
,  self-contained  look  that  pleased  me.     I 

'  fell  into  talk  with  one  of  them. 

• 

"  Is  there  a  good   market  for  the  farmers 
here  in  the  woods  F  "  I  asked. 

"  None   better.     They  can  sell  what  they  - 


A   MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL.  31 

raise  at  their  doors,  and  for  the  best  of  prices. 
The  lumberers  want  it  all,  and  more." 

"  It  must  be  a  lonely  life.  But  then  we  all 
have  to  pay  more  or  less  life  for  a  living-." 

"  Well,  it  is  lonesome.  Should  n't  like  it. 
After  all,  the  best  crop  a  man  can  raise  is  a 
good  crop  of  society.  We  don't  live  none  too 
long,  anyhow ;  and  without  society  a  fellow 
could  n't  tell  mor  'n  half  the  time  whether  he 
was  alive  or  not/5 

This  speech  gave  me  a  glimpse  into  the  life 
of  the  lumberers'  camp.  It  was  plain  that 
there  a  man  would  soon  find  out  how  much 
alive  he  was,  —  there  he  could  learn  to  esti 
mate  his  quality,  weighed  in  the  nicest  self- 
adjusting  balance.  The  best  arm  at  the  axe 
or  the  paddle,  the  surest  eye  for  a  road  or  for 
the  weak  point  of  a.  jam,  the  steadiest  foot  upon 
the  squirming  log,  the  most  persuasive  voice 
to  the  tugging  oxen,  —  all  these  things  are 
rapidly  settled,  and  so  an  aristocracy  is  evolved 
from  this  democracy  of  the  woods,  for  good 
old  mother  Nature  speaks  Saxon  still,  and 
with  her  either  Canning  or  Kenning  means 
King. 


32  A   MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL. 


A  string  of  five  loons  was  flying  back  And 

•    /forth  in  long,   irregular  zigzags,  uttering  at 

(T  i  intervals  their  wild,  tremulous  cry,  which  al- 

'.  ways  seems  far  away,  like  the  last  faint  pulse 

i.      of  echo  dying.  among  the  hills,  and  which  is 

,  fc   ,   one  of  those  few  sounds  that,  instead  of  dis 

turbing  solitude,  only  deepen  and  confirm  it. 

On  our  inland  ponds  they  are  usually  seen  in 

pairs,  and  I  asked  if  it  were  common  to  meet 

five  together.     My  question  was  answered  by 

a  queer-looking  old  man,  chiefly  remarkable  for 

a  pair  of  enormous  cowhide  boots,  over  which 

large  blue  trousers  of  frocking  strove  in  vain 

to  crowd  themselves. 

"Wahl,  't  ain't  usliil,"  said  he,  "and  it's 
called  a  sign  o'  rain  comin',  that  is." 

"  Do  you  think  it  will  rain?  " 

With  the  caution  of  a  veteran  ampex,  he 
evaded  a  direct  reply.  "  Wahl,  they  du  say 
it  's  a  sign  o'  rain  comin',"  said  he. 

I  discovered  afterward  that  my  interlocutor0 
was  Uncle  Zeb.     Formerly,  every  New  Eng 
land  town  had  its  representative  uncle.     He 
was  not  a  pawnbroker,  but  some  elderly  man 
who,  for  want  of  more  defined  family  ties,  had 


" '  Wahl,  't  ain't  usliil,'  said  he." 


A    MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL. 


gradually  assumed  this  avuncular  relation  to 
the  community,  inhabiting  the  border-land  be^ 
tween  respectability  and  the  almshouse,  with 
no  regular  calling,  but  working  at  haying,  wood^ 
sawing,  whitewashing,  associated  with  the  de' 
mise  of  pigs  and  the  ailments  of  cattle,  and 
possessing  as  much  patriotism  as  might  be  inv 
plied  in  a  devoted  attachment  to  "  New  Eng 
land  "  —  with  a  good  deal  of  sugar  and  very 
little  water  in  it.  Uncle  Zeb  ^was  a,  good 
specimen  of  this  palaeozoic  class,  extinct  'among 
us  for  the  most  part,  or  surviving,  like  the 
f-  Dodo,  in  the  Botany^Bays  of  society.  He  was 
'ready  to  contribute  (somewhat  muddily)  to  aUN^ 
,  general  conversation ;  but  his  chief  topics  ^n 
were  his  boots  and  the  'Roostick  war.  Upon-4 

'V  I  L^  $'^r£b\ 

1  he  lowlands  and  levels  of  ordinary  palaver  he 
would  make  rapid  and  unlooked-for  ipqurakms  j 
but,  provision  foiling,  he  would  retffaflo  these  Vf*1 
two  fastnesses,  "^wnence  it  was  impossible  to\^L^ 
dislodge  him,  and  to  which  be  knew  innumer-^^ 

,able  passes  and  short  cuts  quite  beyond. the   . 
•  MV*^    p  /oVWjLt^v  w&qLj&tAjL*  4^ 

conjejcture  ot  common  w_ooacratt/    His  mmcL^  ^ 

opened  naturally  to  these  two  subjects,  like  a 
book  to  some  favorite  passage.    As  the  ear  ac-- 


36  A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL. 

customs  itself  to  any  sound  recurring  regularly,     c, 
such  as  the  ticking  of  a  clock,  and,  without  a 
conscious  effort  of  attention,  takes  no  impres 
sion  from  it  whatever,  so  does  the  mind  find  a 
natural  safeguard  against  this  pendulum  species  -  v 
of  discourse,  and  performs  its  duties  in  the  par 
liament  by  an  unconscious  reflex  action,  like 
the  beating  of  the  heart  or  the  movement  of  s$ 
the  lungs.     If  talk  seemed  to  be  flagging,  our  ^  > 
Uncle  would  put  the  heel  of  one  boot  upon  the  -y  't 
toe  of  the  other,  to  bring  it  within  point-blank^/ 
range,  and  say,  "  Wahl,  I  stump  the  Devil  him-'"f 
self  to  make  that  'ere  boot  hurt  my  foot,"  leav-^'v 
ing  us  in  doubt  whether  it  were  the  virtue  of   ^ 
the  foot  or  its  case  which  set  at  nought  the  fas 
wiles  of  the  adversary ;    or,  looking  up  sud- 
,  he  would  exclaim,  "  Wahl,  we  eat  some 
to  the   'Roostick   war,    I   tell  you!" 
vt.hen  his  poor,  old  clay  was  wet  ^ith  ^m, 
— •%  ^iis  thoughts  and  words  acquired  a  raiik  flavor 
from  it,  as  from-,  too  strong  a  fertilizer.     At 
such  times,  too,  his  fancy  commonly  reverted 
to  a  pre-historic  period  of  his  life,  when  he 
singly  had  settled  all  the  surrounding  country, 
subdued  the  Injuns  and  other  wild  animals, 
and  named  all  the  towns. 


A   MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL.  37 

We  talked  of  the  winter-camps  and  the  life 
there.  "  The  best  thing  is,"  said  our  uncle, 
"  to  hear  a  log  squeal  thru  the  snow.  Git  a 
good,  cole,  frosty  mornin',  in  Febuary  say,  an' 
take  an'  hitch  the  critters  on  to  a  log  that  '11 
scale  seven  thousan',  an'  it  '11  squeal  as  pooty 
as  an'thin'  you  ever  hearn,  I  tell  you." 

A  pause. 

"  Lessee,  —  seen  Cal  Hutchins  lately  ?" 
.    "No." 

"  Seems  to  me  's  though  I  hed  n't  seen  Cal 
sence  the  'Roostick  war.  Wahl,"  etc.,  etc. 

Another  pause. 

"  To  look  at  them  boots  you  'd  think  they 
was  too  large ;  but  kind  o'  git  your  foot  into 
'em,  and  they  're  as  easy  's  a  glove."  (I  ob 
served  that  he  never  seemed  really  to  get  his 
foot  in,  —  there  was  always  a  qualifying  kind 
o\)  "Wahl,  my  foot  can  play  in  'em  like  a 
young  hedgehog." 

By  this  time  we  had  arrived  at  Kineo,  —  a 
flourishing  village  of  one  house,  the  tavern, 
kept  by  'Squire  Barrows.  The  'Squire  is  a 
large,  hearty  man,  with  a  voice  as  clear  and 
strong  as  a  northwest  wind,  and  a  great  laugh 


?8  A   MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL. 

suitable  to  it.  His  table  is  neat  and  well  sup- 
plied,  and  he  waits  upon  it  himself  in  the  good 
old  landlordly  fashion.  One  may  be  much 
better  off  here,  to  my  thinking,  than  in  one  of 
t  hose  gigantic  Columbaria  which  are  foisted^  /v 
rrfL^pon  us  patient  Americans  for  hotels,,  and^': 
^>^  *where  one  is  packed  away  in  a  pigeon-hole  so 
;oear  the  heavens  that,  if  the  comet  should  flirt 
its  ta^  (ll°  unlikely  thing  in  the- month  of  flies,) 
one  would  be  in  danger  of  being  brushed 
away.  Here  one  does  not  pay  his  diurnal  d~& 

dollars  for  an  undivided  five-hundredth 
part  of  the  pleasure  of  looking  at  gilt  ginger 
bread.  Here  one's  relations  are  with  the  mon 
arch  himself,  and  one  is  not  obliged  to  wait 
the  slow  leisure  of  those  "  attentive  clerks  " 
whose  praises  are  sung  by  thankful  deadheads, 
and  to  whom  the  slave  who  pays  may  feel  as 
much  gratitude  as  might  thrill  the  heart  of  a 
brown-paper  parcel  toward  the  express-man 
who  labels  it  and  chucks  it  under  his  counter. 
Sunday,  \kth.  --  The  loons  were  right. 
About  midnight  it  began  to  rain  in  earnest, 
and  did  not  hold  up  till  about  ten  o'clock  this 
morning.  "  This  is  a  Maine  dew,"  said  a 


A   MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL.  39 

shaggy  woodman  cheerily,  as  he  shook  the  wa 
ter  out  of  his  wide-awake,  "  if  it  don't  look  out 
sharp,  it  311  begin  to  rain  afore  it  thinks  on  3t." 
The  day  was  mostly  spent  within  doors  ;  but 
I  found  good  and  intelligent  society.  We 
should  have  to  be  shipwrecked  on  Juan  Fer-',V! 
nandez  not  to  find  men  who  knew  more 


we.     In   these   travelling  encounters   one  is  ," 
thrown  upon  his  own  resources,  and  is  worth  ; 
just  what  he  carries  about  him.     The  social^ 
currency  of  home,  the  smooth-worn  coin  which  £    ' 
passes  freely  among  friends  and  neighbors,  is^.-rf 
of  no  account.     "V^e  are  thrown  back  upon  the  » 
old  system  of  barter;  and,  even  with  savages,^ 
we  bring  away  only  as  much  of  the  wild  wealth  Q*£& 
of  the  woods  as  we  carry  beads  of  thought  and  ^ 
experience,  strung  one  by  one  in  painful  years,  *^Co 
to  pay  for  them  with.     A  useful  old  jackknife  /^^ 
will  buy  more  than  the  daintiest  Louis  Quinze 
paper-folder  fresh  from  Paris.      Perhaps  the 
kind  of  intelligence  one  gets  in  these  out-of-the- 
way  places  is  the  best,  —  where  one  takes  a 
fresh  man  after  breakfast  instead  of  the  damp 
morning  paper,  and  where  the  magnetic  tele 
graph  of  human  sympathy  flashes  swift  news 
from  brain  to  brain. 


40  A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL. 

Meanwhile,  at  a  pinch,  to-morrow's  weather 
can  be  discussed.  The  fugury  ^om  Ifie  flight 
of  birds  is  favorable, — the  loons  no  longer^/^ 
prophesying  rain.  The  wind  also  is  hauling  ' 
round  to  the  right  quarter,  according  to  some, 
to  the  wrong,  if  we  are  to  believe  others. 
Each  man  has  his  private  barometer  of  hope, 
the  mercury  in  which  is  more  or  less  sensitive, 
and  the  opinion  vibrant  with  its  rise  or  fall. 
Mine  has  an  index  which  can  be  moved  me 
chanically.  I  fixed  it  at  set  fair,  and  resigned 
myself.  I  read  an  old  volume  of  the  Patent- 
Ofnce  Report  on  Agriculture,  and  stored  away 
a  beautiful  pile  of  facts  and  observations  for 
future  use,  which  the  current  of  occupation, 
at  its  first  freshet,  would  sweep  quietly  off  to 
blank  oblivion.  Practical  application  is  the 
only  mordant  which  will  set  things  in  the 
memory.  Study,  without  it,  is  gymnastics, 
and  not  work,  which  alone  will  get  intellectual 
bread.  One  learns  more  metaphysics  iromv{v  C 
single  temptation  than  from  all  the  philoso- 
phers.  It  is  curious,  though,  how  tyrannical 
"  the  habit  of  reading  is,  and  what  shifts  we 
make  to  escape  thinking.  There  is  no  bore  , 

•f 


_ 


A   MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL.  41 

we  dread  being  left  alone  with  so  much  as  our 
own  minds.  I  have  seen  a  sensible  man  study 
a  stale  newspaper  in  a  country  tavern,  and 
husband  it  as  he  would  an  old  shoe  on  a  raft 
after  shipwreck.  Why  not  try  a  bit  of  hiber 
nation  ?  There  are  few  brains  that  would 
be  better  for  living  on  their  own  fat  a 
while.  With  these  reflections,  I, 
standing,  spent  the  afternoon  over  my 
If  our  own  experience  is  of  so  little  use  to  us, 
whnt  a  dolt  is  hi-  who  recommends  to  man  or 
nation  the  experience  of  others  !  Like  the 
mantle  in  the  old  ballad,  it  is  always  too  short 
or  too  long,  and  exposes  or  trips  us  up.  "  Keep 
out  of  that  candle,"  says  old  Father  Miller, 
"or  you'll  get  a  singeing."  "Pooh,  pooh, 
father,  I  Ve  been  dipped  in  the  new  asbestos 
preparation,"  and  frozz  !  it  is  all  over  with 
young  Hopeful.  How  many  warnings  have 
been  drawn  from  Pretoriarf  bahcls,  and  Janiza^- 
^/.ries,  ancT^[amelukes,  to  make  Napoleon  III. 
impossible  m  1851  !  I  found  myself  thinking 

•£tt't</       r  "  ° 

/the  same  thoughts  over  again,  when  we  walked 
later  on  the  beach   and  picked  up   pebbles.  &&* 
The  old   time-ocean  throws  uon   its  shores"" 


•  •-•"*•        -    *•••'• 

^^ft  \  n  ^ 


42  A   MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL. 

just  such  rounded  and  polished  results  of  the 
eternal  turmoil,  but  we  only  see  the  beauty  of 
those  we  have  got  the  headache  in  stooping 
for  ourselves,  and  wonder  at  the  dull  brown 
bits  of  common  stone  with  which  our  comrades 
have  stuffed  their  pockets.  Afterwards  this 
little  fable  came  of  it. 


DOCTOR  LOBSTER. 


A  PERCH,  who  had  the  toothache,  once 
Thus  moaned,  like  any  human  dunce : 
"  Why  must  great  souls  exhaust  so  soon 
Life's  thin  and  unsubstantial  boon  ? 

T-l      •      -  1  /3-^'V*      < 

Existence  on  such  sculpm  terms, — ^^-^^i^ . 

Their  vulgar  loves  and  hard-won  worms,  — 

What  is  it  all  but  dross  to  me, 

WThose  nature  craves  a  larger  sea ; 

Whose  inches,  six  from  head  to  tail, 

Enclose  the  spirit  of  a  whale ; 

Who,  if  great  baits  were  still  to  win, 

By  watchful  eye  and  fearless  fin 

Might  with  the  Zodiac's  awful  twain 

Room  for  a  third  immortal  gain  ? 

Better  the  crowd's  unthinking  plan,  — 

The  hook,  the  jerk,  the  frying-pan  ! 

O  Death,  thou  ever  roaming  shark, 

Ingulf  me  in  eternal  dark !  " 


A  MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL.  43 

The  speech  was  cut  in  two  by  flight : 

A  real  shark  had  come  in  sight ; 

No  metaphoric  monster,  one 

It  soothes  despair  to  call  upon, 

But  stealthy,  sidelong,  grim,  I  wis 

A  bit  of  downright  Nemesis  - 

While  it  recovered  from'tlie  sno6k, 

Our  fish  took  shelter  'neath  a  rock  : 

This  was  an  ancient  lobster's  house,  "&> 

A  lobster  of  prodigious  nous,     O 

So  old  that  barnacles  had  spread  ' ^r***™-^  a^ 

Their  white  encampments  o'er  its  headf  ' 

And  of  experience  so  stupend, 

His  claws  were  blunted  at  the  end, 

Turning  life's  iron  pages  o'er, 

That  shut  and  can  be  oped  no  more. 

Stretching  a  hospitable  claw, 

"  At  once,"  said  he,  "  the  point  I  saw  ; 

My  dear  young  friend,  your  case  I  rue, 

Your  great-great-grandfather  I  knew; 

He  was  a  tried  and  tender  friend 

I  know,  —  I  ate  him  in  the  end  : 

In  this  vile  sea  a  pilgrim  long, 

Still  my  sight  's  good,  my  memory  strong ; 

The  only  sign  that  age  is  near 

Is  a  slight  deafness  in  this  ear ; 

I  understand  your  case  as  well 

As  this  my  old  familiar  shell; 


44  A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL. 

This  sorrow  's  a  new-fangled  notion, 
Come  in  since  first  I  knew  the  ocean  ; 
We  had  no  radicals,  nor  crimes, 
Nor  lobster-pots,  in  good  old  times  ; 
Your  traps  and  nets  and  hooks  we  owe 
To  Messieurs  Louis  Blanc  and  Co.  ; 
I  say  to  all  my  sons  and  daughters, 
Shun  Red  Republican  hot  waters  ; 
No  lobster  ever  cast  his  lot 
Among  the  reds,  but  went  to  pot: 
Your  trouble  's  in  the  jaw,  you  said  ? 
Come,  let  me  just  nip  off  your  head, 
And,  when  a  new  one  comes,  the  pain 
Will  never  trouble  you  again  : 
Nay,  nay,  fear  naught  :  't  is  nature's  law. 
Four  times  I  've  lost  this  starboard  claw  ; 
And  still,  erelong,  another  grew, 
Good  as  the  old,  —and  better  too  !  " 

The  perch  consented,  and  next  day 
An  osprey,  marketing  that  way, 
Picked  up  a  fish  without  a  head, 
••'Floating  with  belly  up,  stone  dead. 


MORAL. 

j  f  /'Sharp  are  the  teeth  of  ancient  saws, 
*  *  '    "/And  sauce  for  goose  is  gander's  sauce  ; 

But  perch's  heads  are  n't  lobster's  claws. 
. 

*v/j£^V 


A    MOOSEHBAD    JOURNAL.  45 

Monday,    Vzth. — The    morning    was    fine, 
and  we  were  called  at  four   o'clock.     At  the 
moment   my   door   was   knocked    at,    I   was 
mounting  a  giraffe  with  that  charming  nilad-^  ^ 
mirari   which   characterizes   dreams,  to   visit  r 
c&n«JJrester  John.     Eat-tat-tat-tat !  upon  my  door 
^vand  upon  the   horn  gate  of  dreams  also.     I 
•'-  remarked   to   my  skowhegan   (the   Tatar   for 
^  giraffe-driver)  that  I  was  quite  sure  the  ani- 


IUU.L  had  the  raps,  a  common  disease  among 
them,  for  I  heard  a  queer  knocking  noise  in 
side  him.  It  is  the  sound  of  his  joints,  0 

•^cTambourgi !  (an  Oriental  term  of  reverence,) 
and  proves  him  to  be  of  the  race  of  El  Kei- 
rat.  Rat-tat-tat-too  !  and  I  lost  my  dinner  at 
the  frester's,  embarking  for  a  voyage  to  the 
Northwest  Carry  instead.  Never  use  the 
W/ord  canoe,  my  dear  Storg,  if  you  wish  to 

''retain  your  self-respect.  Birch  is  the  term 
among  us  backwoodsmen.  I  never  knew  it 
till  yesterday;  but,  like  a  true  philosopher,  I 
made  it  appear  as  if  I  had  been  intimate  with 

i  'it  from  childhood.  The  rapidity  with  which 
the  human  mind  levels  itself  to  the  standard 

around  it  gives  us  the  most  pertinent  warning 

-_ 


46  A   MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL. 

as  to  the  company  we  keep.  It  is  as  hard 
for  most  characters  to  stay  at  their  own  aver 
age  point  in  all  companies,  as  for  a  thermome 
ter  to  say  65°  for  twenty -four  hours  together. 
I  like  this  in  our  friend  Johannes  TauMs/lKat 
he  carries  everywhere  and  maintains  his  in 
sular  temperature,  and  will  have  everything 
accommodate  itself  to  that.  Shall  I  confess 
that  this  morning  I  would  rather  have  broken 
the  moral  law,  than  have  endangered  the  equi 
poise  of  the  birch  by  my  awkwardness  ?  that 
I  should  have  been  prouder  of  a  compliment 
to  my  paddling,  than  to  have  had  both  my 
guides  suppose  me  the  author  of  Hamlet  ? 
Well,  Cardinal  Richelieu  used  to  jump  over 
chairs. 

We  were  to  paddle  about  twenty  miles  ;  but 
we  made  it  rather  more  by  crossing  and  re- 
crossing  the  lake.  Twice  we  landed,  —  once 
at  a  camp,  where  we  found  the  cook  alone, 
baking  bread  and  gingerbread.  Monsieur 
Soyer  would  have  been  startled  a  little  by  this 
shaggy  professor,  —  this  Pre-Raphaelite  of 
cookery.  He  represented  the  salaratus  period 
of  the  art,  and  his  bread  was  of  a  brilliant  yel- 


A   MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL.  47 

low,  like  those  cakes  tinged  with  saffron,  which 

hold  out  so  long  against  time  and  the  flies  in 

little  water-side   shops  of  seaport   towns,  — 

dingy  extremities  of  trade  fit  to  moulder  on 

*'  Lethe  wharf.     His  water  was  better,  squeezed 

JV  out   of  ice-cold    granite  in  the    neighboring 

•  -.mountains,   and    sent    through    subterranean 

•^cfucts  to  sparkle  up  by  the  door  of  the  camp. 

'    ,    -L"  There  's  nothin'  so  sweet  an'  hulsome  as 

your  real  spring  water,"  said  Uncle  Zeb,  "  git 

it  pure.     But  it  's  dreffle  hard  to  git  it  that 

^ain't   got   sunthin'  the  matter  of  it.     Snow- 


'11  burn  a  man's  inside  out,  —  I  lamed 
tliat  to  the  'Roostick  war,  —  and  the  snow 
Jays   terrible  long  on   some  o'  thes'ere   hills. 
^le  an'  Eb  Stiles  was  up  old  Ktahdn  once  jest 
about  this  time  o'  year,  an'  we  come  acrost  a 
kind  o'  holler  like,  as  full  o'  snow  as  your 
^  ^stockin  's  full  o'  your  foot.     /  see  it  fust,  an' 
;took  an'  rammed  a  settin'-pole  ;  wahl,  it  was 
all  o'  twenty  foot  into  't,  an'  could  n't  fin'  no 
bottom.      I  dunno   as    there   's    snow-water 
\   enough  in  this  to  do  no  hurt.     I  don't  some- 
.;.r^Low  seem  to  think  that  real  spring-water's  so 
plenty  as  it  used  to  be."    And  Uncle  Zeb,  with 


48  A   MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL. 

perhaps  a  little  over-refinement  of  scrupulosity, 
applied  his  lips  to  the  Ethiop  ones  of  a  bottle 
of  raw  gin,  with  a  kiss  that  drew  out  its  very    * 
soul,  —  a   basia   that    Secuiidus    mightiiave  [r  ^ 
sung.     He  must  have  been  a  wonderful  judge 
of  water,  for  he  analyzed  this,  and  detected  i 
latent  snow  simply  by  his  eye,  and  without  tl\eU^, 
clumsy  process  of  tasting.     I  could  not  help  jgjh. 
thinking  that  he  had  made  the  desert  his  dwell 
ing-place  chiefly  in  order  to  enjoy  the  minis-'.' /2 . 
trations  of  this  one  fair  spirit  unmolested.  ^^^ 
We  pushed  on.     Little  islands  loomed  trem-      , 
bling  between    sky  and  water,  like   hanging' 
gardens.     Gradually   the   filmy   trees   defined 
themselves,   the   aerial    enchantment   lost   its 
potency,  and  we  came  up  with  common  prose 
islands  that  had  so  late  been  magical  and  po 
etic.     The  old  story  of  the  attained  and  uiiat- 
tained.     About  noon  we  reached  the  head  of 
the   lake,  and  took  possession  of  a  deserted 
icongen,  in  which  to  cook  and  eat  our  dinner. 
No  Jew,  I  am  sure,  can  have  a  more  thorough 
dislike  of  salt  pork  than  I  have  in  a  normal 
state,  yet  I  had  already  eaten  it  raw  with  hard 
bread  for  lunch,  and  relished  it  keenly.     We 


"We  sat  round  and  ate  thankfully." 


A   MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL.  51 

soon  had  our  tea-kettle  over  the  fire,  and  before 
long  the  cover  was  chattering  with  the  escaping 
steam,  which  had  thus  vainly  begged  of  ^11  rnen 
to  be  saddled  and  bridled,  till  Jafrfes  Waft  one'" ' 
day  happened  to  overhear  it.  One  of  our 
guides  shot  three  Canada  grouse,  and  these 
were  turned  slowly  between  the  lire  and  a  bit 
of  salt  pork,  which  dropped  fatness  upon  them 
as  it  fried.  Although  my  fingers  were  certainly 
not  made  before  knives  and  forks,  yet  they 
served  as  a  convenient  substitute  for  those 
more  ancient  inventions.  We  sat  round,  Turk- 
fashion,  and  ate  thankfully,  while  a  party  of 
'aborigines  of  the  Mosquito  tribe,  who  had 


--^a-  Mosquit 

camped  in  the  wongen  before  we  arrived,  dined 
upon  us.  I  do  not  know  what  the  British 
Protectorate  of  the  Mosquitoes  amounts  to ; 
but,  as  I  squatted  there  at  the  mercy  of  these 
blood-thirsty  savages,  I  no  longer  wondered 
that  the  classic  JSvefett  had  been  stung  into  a 
willingness  for  war  on  the  question. 

"  This  'ere  'd  be  about  a  complete  place  for 
a  camp,  ef  there  was  on'y  a  spring  o'  sweet 
water  handy.  Frizzled  pork  goes  wal,  don't 
it  ?  Yes,  an'  sets  wal,  too,"  said  Uncle  Zeb, 


52  A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL. 

and  lie   again  tilted  his   bottle,   which    rose 
nearer  and  nearer  to  an  angle  of  forty-five  at 
every  gurgle.     He  then  broached  a  curious 
,  Ur/  dietetic   theory  :  '  '  The   reason   we   take   salt 
*i?(»jj)ork  along  is  cos  it  packs  handy  :  you  git  the 
<.  ^  '""greatest  amount  o'  board  in  the  smallest  com- 
pass,  —  let   alone   that   it  's   more   nourishin' 
than   an'thin'  else.     It  kind  o'  don't  disgest 
£  £%)  quick,  but  stays  by  ye,  anourishin'  ye  all 
i   the  while. 

"A  feller  can  live  wal  on  frizzled  pork  an' 
good  spring-water,  git  it  good.  To  the  'Roos- 
tick  war  we  did  n't  ask  for  nothin'  better,  — 
on'y  beans."  (Tilt,  tilt,  gurgle,  gurgled] 
Then,  with  an  apparent  feeling  of  inconsis 
tency,  "  But  then,  come  to  git  used  to  a  par 
ticular  kind  o'  spring-water,  an'  it  makes  a 
feller  hard  to  suit.  Most  all  sorts  o'  water 
taste  kind  o'  //zsipid  away  from  home.  Now, 
I  've  gut  a  spring  to  rny  place  that  's  as  sweet 
—  wahl,  it  's  as  sweet  as  maple  sap.  A  feller 
acts  about  water  jest  as  he  does  about  a  pair 
o'  boots.  It  's  all  on  it  in  gittin'  wonted. 
Now,  them  boots,"  etc.,  etc.  (Gurgle,  gurgle, 
'e,  smack  /) 


A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL.  53 

All  tins  while  lie  was  packing  away  the 
remains  of  the  pork  and  hard  bread  in  two 
large  firkins.  This  accomplished,  we  re-em 
barked,  our  uncle  on  his  way  to  the  birch 
essaying  a  kind  of  song  in  four  or  five  parts, 
of  which  the  words  were  hilarious  and  the 
tune  profoundly  melancholy,  and  which  was 
finished,  and  the  rest  of  his  voice  apparently 
jerked  out  of  him  in  one  sharp  falsetto  note, 
by  his  tripping  over  the  root  of  a  tree.  We 
paddled  a  short  distance  up  a  brook  which 
came  into  the  lake  smoothly  through  a  little 
meadow  not  far  off.  We  soon  reached  the 
Northwest  Carry,  and  our  guide,  pointing 
through  the  woods,  said  :  "  That 's  the  Can- 
nydy  road.  You  can  travel  that  clearn  to 
Kebeck,  a  hundred  an'  twenty  mile,"  —a 
privilege  of  which  I  respectfully  declined  to 
avail  myself.  The  offer,  however,  remains 
open  to  the  public.  The  Carry  is  called  two 
miles ;  but  this  is  the  estimate  of  somebody 
who  had  nothing  to  lug.  I  had  a  headache 
and  all  my  baggage,  which,  with  a  traveller's 
instinct,  I  had  brought  with  me.  (P.  S.  — 
I  did  not  even  take  the  keys  out  of  my  pocket, 


54  A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL. 

and  both  my  bags  were  wet  through  before 
I  came  back.)     My  estimate  of  the  distance 
is  eighteen  thousand  six  hundred  and  seyenJty- 
four  miles  and  three  quarters,  —  the  fraction  . 
being  the  part  left  to  be  travelled  after  one 
of  my  companions   most   kindly  insisted   on 
relieving   me  of   my   heaviest  bag.     I   know 
very  well   that   the   ancient   Roman   soldiers 
used   to   carry  sixty  pounds'  weight,  and  all 
that;    but  I  am  not,  and  never  shall   be,  an 
ancient  Roman  soldier,  —  no,  not  even  in  the 
miraculous   Thundering  Legion.     Uncle   Zeb 
,  "*  stung  the   two   provender  firkins   across   his 
shoulder,   and  trudged  along,  grumbling  that 
"lie  never  see  secli  a  contrairy  pair  as  them." 
He  had  begun  upon  a  second  bottle   of  his ./ 
^"particular    kind   o'    spring- water/'    and,  ^f 
'^ft  .every  rest,  the  gurgle  of  this  peripatetic  fouii-^' 
iain  might  be  heard,  followed  by  a  smack,  a^j 
fragment  of  mosaic  song,  or  a  confused  clatter  '•-/; 
with  the  cowhide   boots,  being   an   arbitrary  ;J- 
symbol,   intended     to     represent   the   festive  ^J 
£V^  dance.     Christian's  pack  gave   him   not   half.;^ 
*^< -*-*so  much  trouble   as   the   firkins  gave  Uncletv< 
It   grew   harder   and   harder   to   sling 


He  had  begun  on  a  second  bottle.' 


A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL. 

them,  and  with  every  fresh  gulp  of  the 
vian  elixir,  they  got  heavier.  Or  rather,  ther^, 
truth  was,  that  his  hat  grew  heavier,  in  which*  $* 
he  was  carrying  on  an  extensive  manufac 
ture  of  bricks  without  straw.  At  last  affairs 
reached  a  crisis,  and  a  particularly  favorable 
pitch  offering,  with  a  puddle  at  the  foot  of  it, 
even  the  boots  afforded  no  sufficient  ballast, 
and  awaty  went  our  uncle,  the  satellite  firkins 
accompanying  faithfully  his  headlong  flight. 
Did  ever  exiled  monarch  or  disgraced  minis 
ter  find  the  cause  of  his  fall  in  himself?  Is 
there  not  always  a  strawberry  at  the  bottom 
of  our  cup  of  life,  on  which  we  can  lay  all 
the  blame  of  our  deviations  from  the  straight 
path  ?  Till  now  Uncle  Zeb  had  contrived  to 
'  £rve"  a  gloss  of  volition  to  smaller  stumblings 
,  and  gyrations,  by  exaggerating  them  into  an 
appearance  of  playful  burlesque.  But  the 
present  case  was  beyond  any  such  subterfuges. 
He  held  a  bed  of  justice  where  he  sat,  and 
then  arose  slowly,  with  a  stern  determination 
of  vengeance  stiffening  every  muscle  of  his 
face.  But  what  would  he  select  as  the  cul 
prit  ?  "It 's  that  cussed  firkin,"  he  mumbled 


58  A   MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL. 

to  himself.  "I  never  knowed  a  firkin  cair 
on  so,  —  no,  not  in  the  'Roostehicick  war. 
There,  go  long,  will  ye  ?  and  don't  come  back 
till  you've  lamed  how  to  walk  with  a  genel- 
man !  "  And,  seizing  the  unhappy  scapegoat 
by  the  bail,  he  hurled  it  into  the  forest.  It 
is  a  curious  circumstance,  that  it  was  not  the 
firkin  containing  the  bottle  which  was  thus 
condemned  to  exile. 

The  end  of  the  Carry  was  reached  at  last, 
and,  as  we  drew  near  it,  we  heard  a  sound  of 
shouting  and  laughter.  It  came  from  a  party 
of  men  making  hay  of  the  wild  grass  in  .Se- 
boomok  meadows,  which  lie  around  Seboomok 
pond,  into  which  the  Carry  empties  itself. 
Their  camp  was  near,  and  our  two  hunters 
set  out  for  it,  leaving  us  seated  in  the  birch  on 
the  plashy  border  of  the  pond.  The  repose 
was  perfect.  Another  heaven  hallowed  and 
deepened  the  polished  lake,  and  through  that 
nether  world  the  fish-hawk's  double  floated 
with  balanced  wings,  or,  wheeling  suddenly, 
flashed  his  whitened  breast  against  the  sun. 
As  the  clattering  kingfisher  flew  unsteadily 
across,  and  seemed  to  push  his  heavy  head 


A   MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL.  59 

along  with  ever-renewing  effort,  a  visionary 
mate  flitted  from  downward  tree  to  tree  below. 
Some  tall  alders  shaded  us  from  the  sun,  in 
whose  yellow  afternoon  light  the  drowsy  for 
est  was  steeped,  giving  out  that  wholesome 
resinous  perfume,  almost  the  only  warm  odor 
which  it  is  refreshing  to  breathe.  The  tame 
haycocks  in  the  midst  of  the  wildness  gave  one 
a  pleasant  reminiscence  of  home,  like  hearing 
one's  native  tongue  in  a  strange  country. 

Presently  our  hunters  came  back,  bringing 
with  them  a  tall,  thin,  active-looking  man, 
with  black  eyes,  that  glanced  unconsciously 
on  all  sides,  like  one  of  those  spots  of  sunlight 
which  a  child  dances  up  and  clown  the  street 
with  a  bit  of  looking-glass.  This  was  M.,  the 
captain  of  the  hay-makers,  a  famous  river- 
driver,  and  who  was^  to  have  fifty  men  under 
him  next  winter.  I  could  now  understand 
that  sleepless  vigilance  of  eye.  He  had  con 
sented  to  take  two  of  our  party  in  his  birch  to 
search  for  moose.  A  quick,  nervous,  decided 
man,  he  got  them  into  the  birch,  and  was  off 
instantly,  without  a  superfluous  word.  He  evi 
dently  looked  upon  them  as  he  would  upon  a 


60  A   MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL. 

couple  of  logs  which  lie  was  to  deliver  at  a 
certain  place.     Indeed,  I  doubt  if  life  and  the  ,/, 

•    A^   v  •  ^?  ®     ' 
world  presented  themselves  to  NapiefuimselfMf^ 

in  a  more  logarithmic  way.     His  only  thought 
was  to  do  the  immediate  duty  well,  and  to  pilot  ^ 
his  particular  raft  down  the  crooked  stream  of 
life  to  the  ocean  beyond.    The  birch  seemed  to      ) 
feel  him  as  an  inspiring  soul,  and  slid  ^ 


straight  and  swift  for  the  outlet  of  the  pond. 
As  he  disappeared  under  the  overarching  alders 
of  the  brook,  our  two  hunters  could  not  re 
press  a  grave  and  measured  applause.  There 
is  never  any  extravagance  among  these  wood 
men  ;  their  eye,  accustomed  to  reckoning  the 
number  of  feet  which  a  tree  will  scale,  is  rapid 
and  close  in  its  guess  of  the  amount  of  stuff  in 
a  man.  It  was  laudfari'  a  laudato,  however, 
for  they  themselves  were  accounted  good  men 
in  a  birch.  I  was  amused,  in  talking  with 
them  about  him,  to  meet  with  an  instance  of 
that  tendency  of  the  human  mind  to  assign 
some  utterly  improbable  reason  for  gifts  which 
seem  unaccountable.  After  due  praise,  one  of 
them  said,  "I  guess  he  's  got  some  Injun  in 
him,"  although  I  knew  very  well  that  the 


A   MOOSEHEAD    JOtJRNAL.  61 

speaker  had  a  thorough  contempt  for  the 
red-man,  mentally  and  physically.  Here  was 
mythology  in  a  small  way,  —  the  same  that 
under  more  fa\7orable  auspices  hatched  Helen  ^ 
put  of  an  egg  and  gave  Merlin  an  Incubus  for 
jffjSi  father.  I  was  pleased  with  all  I  saw  of 
M.  He  was  in  his  narrow  sphere  a  true  az/a£ 
avftpav,  and  the  ragged  edges  of  his  old  hat 
seemed  to  become  coronated  as  I  looked  at 
him.  He  impressed  me  as  a  man  really  edu 
cated, —  that  is,  with  his  aptitudes  drawn  out 
and  ready  for  use.  He  was  A.  M.  and  LL.  D. 
in  Woods  College,  —  Axe-master  and  Doctor 
of  Logs.  Are  not  our  educations  commonly 
like  a  pile  of  books  laid  over  a  plant  in  a  pot  ? 
The  compressed  nature  struggles  through  at 
every  crevice,  but  can  never  get  the  cramp 
and  stunt  out  of  it.  We  spend  all  our  youth 
in  building  a  vessel  for  our  voyage  of  life,  and 
set  forth  with  streamers  flying ;  but  the  mo 
ment  we  come  nigh  the  great  loadstone  moun 
tain  of  our  proper  destiny,  out  leap  all  our 
carefully-driven  bolts  and  nails,  and  we  get 
many  a  mouthful  of  good  salt  brine,  and  many 
a  buffet  of  the  rough  water  of  experience,  ba- 
fore  we  secure  the  bare  right  to  live. 


62  A   MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL. 

We  now  entered  the  outlet,  a  long-drawn 
aisle  of  alder,  on  eacli  side  of  which  spired  tall 
firs,  spruces,  and  white  cedars.  The  motion 
of  the  birch  reminded  me  of  the  gondola,  and 
they  represent  among  water-craft  the  felidae, 
the  cat-tribe,  stealthy,  silent,  treacherous,  and 
preying  by  night.  I  closed  my  eyes,  and 
strove  to  fancy  myself  in  the  dumb  city,  whose 
only  horses,  are  the  bronze  ones  of  St.  Mark. 
But  Nature  would  allow  no  rival,  and  bent 
down  an  alder-bough  to  brush  my  cheek  and 
recall  me.  Only  the  robin  sings  in  the  emerald 
chambers  of  these  tall  sylvan  palaces,  and  the 
squirrel  leaps  from  hanging  balcony  to  balcony. 

The  rain  which  the  loons  foreboded  had 
raised  the  west  branch  of  the  Penobscot  so 
much,  that  a  strong  current  was  setting  back 
into  the  pond  ;  and,  when  at  last  we  brushed 
through  into  the  river,  it  was  full  to  the  brim, 
—  too  full  for  moose,  the  hunters  said.  Rivers 
with  low  banks  have  always  the  compensation 
of  giving  a  sense  of  entire  fulness.  The  sun 
sank  behind  its  horizon  of  pines,  whose  pointed 
summits  notched  the  rosy  west  in  an  endless 
black  sierra.  At  the  same  moment  the  golden 


A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL.  63 

moon  swung  slowly  up  in  the  east,  like  the 
other  scale  of  that  Homeric  balance  in  which 
Zeus  weighed  the  deeds  of  men.  Sunset  and 
moonrise  at  once !  Adam  had  no  more  in 
Eden  —  except  the  head  of  Eve  upon  his 
shoulder.  The  stream  was  so  smooth,  that  the 
floating  logs  we  met  seemed  to  hang  in  a  glow 
ing  atmosphere,  the  shadow-half  being  as  real 
as  the  solid.  And  gradually  the  mind  was 
etherized  to  a  like  dreamy  placidity,  till  fact 
and  fancy,  the  substance  and  the  image,  float 
ing  on  the  current  of  reverie,  became  but  as 
the  upper  and  under  halves  of  'one  unreal 
reality. 

In  the  west  still  lingered  a  pale-green  light. 
I  do  not  know  whether  it  be  from  greater 
familiarity,  but  it  always  seems  to  me  that  the 
pinnacles  of  pine-trees  make  an  edge  to  the 
landscape  which  tells  better  against  the  twi 
light,  or  the  fainter  dawn  before  the  rising 
moon,  than  the  rounded  and  cloud-cumulus 
outline  of  hard- wood  trees. 

After  paddling  a  couple  of  miles,  we  found 
the  arbored  mouth  of  the  little  Malahoodus 
River,  famous  for  moose.  We  had  been  on 


64  A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL. 

the  look-out  for  it,  and  I  was  amused  to  hear 
one  of  the  hunters  say  to  the  other,  to  assure 
himself  of  his  familiarity  with  the  spot,  "  You 
drove  the  West  Branch  last  spring,  did  n't 
you  ?  "  as  one  of  us  might  ask  about  a  horse. 
We  did  not  explore  the  Malahoodus  far,  but 
left  the  other  birch  to  thread  its  cedared  soli 
tudes,  while  we  turned  back  to  try  our  fortunes 
in  the  larger  stream.  We  paddled  on  about 
four  miles  farther,  lingering  now  and  then  op 
posite  the  black  mouth  of  a  moose-path.  The 
incidents  of  our  voyage  were  few,  but  quite  as 
exciting  and  profitable  as  the  items  of  the  news 
papers.  A  stray  log  compensated  very  well 
for  the  ordinary  run  of  accidents,  and  the  float 
ing  carkus  of  a  moose  which  we  met  could 
pass  muster  instead  of  a  singular  discovery  of 
human  remains  by  workmen  in  digging  a  cellar. 
Once  or  twice  we  saw  what  seemed  ghosts  of 
trees ;  but  they  turned  out  to  be  dead  cedars, 
in  winding-sheets  of  long  gray  moss,  made 
spectral  by  the  moonlight.  Just  as  we  were 
turning  to  drift  back  down-stream,  we  heard  a 
loud  gnawing  sound  close  by  us  on  the  bank. 
One  of  our  guides  thought  it  a  hedgehog,  the 


A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL.  65 

other  a  bear.  I  inclined  to  the  bear,  as  mak 
ing  the  adventure  more  imposing.  A  rifle  was 
fired  at  the  sound,  which  began  again  with  the 
most  provoking  indifference,  ere  the  echo,  flar 
ing  madly  at  first  from  shore  to  shore,  died  far 
away  in  a  hoarse  sigh. 

Half  past  Eleven,  p.  M.  —  No  sign  of  a 
moose  yet.  The  birch,  it  seems,  was  strained 
at  the  Carry,  or  the  pitch  was  softened  as  she 
lay  on  the  shore  during  dinner,  and  she  leaks 
a  little.  If  there  be  any  virtue  in  the  sitzbad, 
I  shall  discover  it.  If  I  cannot  extract  green 
cucumbers  from  the  moon's  rays,  I  get  some 
thing  quite  as  cool.  One  of  the  guides  shivers 
so  as  to  shake  the  birch. 

Quarter  to  Twelve. — Later  from  the  Fresh 
et! —  The  water  in  the  birch  is  about  three 
inches  deep,  but  the  dampness  reaches  already 
nearly  to  the  waist.  I  am  obliged  to  remove 
the  matches  from  the  ground-floor  of  my  trou 
sers  into  the  upper  story  of  a  breast-pocket. 
Meanwhile,  we  are  to  sit  immovable,  —  for 
fear  of  frightening  the  moose,  —  which  in 
duces  cramps. 

Half  past  Twelve.  — A  crashing  is  heard  on 


66  A   MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL. 

the  left  bank.  This  is  a  moose  in  good  ear 
nest.  We  are  besought  to  hold  our  breaths, 
if  possible.  My  fingers  so  numb,  I  could  not, 
if  I  tried.  Crash  !  crash  !  again,  and  then  a 
plunge,  followed  by  dead  stillness.  "  Swim- 
min'  crik,"  whispers  guide,  suppressing  all  un 
necessary  parts  of  speech,  —  "  don't  stir."  I, 
for  one,  am  not  likely  to.  A  cold  fog  which 
has  been  gathering  for  the  last  hour  has  fin 
ished  me.  I  fancy  myself  one  of  those  naked 
pigs  that  seem  rushing  out  of  market-doors  in 
winter,  frozen  in  a  ghastly  attitude  of  gallop. 
If  I  were  to  be  shot  myself,  I  should  feel  no 
interest  in  it.  As  it  is,  I  am  only  a  spectator, 
having  declined  a  gun.  Splash  !  again ;  this 
time  the  moose  is  in  sight,  and  click !  click ! 
one  rifle  misses  fire  after  the  other.  The  fog 
has  quietly  spiked  our  batteries.  The  moose 
goes  crashing  up  the  bank,  and  presently  we 
can  hear  it  chewing  its  cud  close  by.  So  we 
lie  in  wait,  freezing. 

At  one  o'clock,  I  propose  to  land  at  a  de 
serted  wongen  I  had  noticed  on  the  way  up, 
where  I  will  make  a  fire,  and  leave  them  to 
refrigerate  as  much  longer  as  they  please. 


A    MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL.  67 

Axe  in  hand,  I  go  plunging  through  waist- 
deep  weeds  dripping  with  dew,  haunted  by 
an  intense  conviction  that  the  gnawing  sound 
we  had  heard  was  a  bear,  and  a  bear  at  least 
eighteen  hands  high.  There  is  something  pok- 
erish  about  a  deserted  dwelling,  even  in  broad 
daylight ;  but  here  in  the  obscure  wood,  and 
the  moon  filtering  unwillingly  through  the 
trees  !  Well,  I  made  the  door  at  last,  and 
found  the  place  packed  fuller  with  darkness 
than  it  ever  had  been  with  hay.  Gradually  I 
was  able  to  make  things  out  a  little,  and  be 
gan  to  hack  frozenly  at  a  log  which  I  groped 
out.  I  was  relieved  presently  by  one  of  the 
guides.  He  cut  at  once  into  one  of  the  up 
rights  of  the  building  till  he  got  some  dry 
splinters,  and  we  soon  had  a  fire  like  the  burn 
ing  of  a  whole  wood-wharf  in  our  part  of  the 
country.  My  companion  went  back  to  the 
birch,  and  left  me  to  keep  house.  First  I 
knocked  a  hole  in  the  roof  (which  the  fire 
began  to  lick  in  a  relishing  way)  for  a  chim 
ney,  and  then  cleared  away  a  damp  growth 
of  "  pison-elder,"  to  make  a  sleeping  place. 
When  the  unsuccessful  hunters  returned,  I 


68  A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL. 

had  everything  quite  comfortable,  and  was 
steaming  at  the  rate  of  about  ten  horse-power 
a  minute.  Young  Telemachus  was  sorry  to 
give  up  the  moose  so  soon,  and,  with  the 
teeth  chattering  almost  out  of  his  head,  he  de 
clared  that  he  would  like  to  stick  it  out  all 
night.  However,  he  reconciled  himself  to  the 
fire,  and,  making  our  beds  of  some  "  splits  " 
which  we  poked  from  the  roof,  we  lay  down 
at  half  past  two.  I,  who  have  inherited  a 
habit  of  looking  into  every  closet  before  I  go 
to  bed,  for  fear  of  fire,  had  become  in  two 
days  such  a  stoic  of  the  woods,  that  I  went 
to  sleep  tranquilly,  certain  that  my  bedroom 
would  be  in  a  blaze  before  morning.  And  so, 
indeed,  it  was ;  and  the  withes  that  bound  it 
together  being  burned  off,  one  of  the  sides  fell 
in  without  waking  me. 

Tuesday,  \§th.  —  After  a  sleep  of  two  hours 
and  a  half,  so  sound  that  it  was  as  good  as 
eight,  we  started  at  half  past  four  for  the  hay 
makers'  camp  again.  We  found  them  just 
getting  breakfast.  We  sat  down  upon  the 
deacon-seat  before  the  fire  blazing  between  the 
bedroom  and  the  salle  a  manger^  which  were 


A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL.  69 

simply  two  roofs  of  spruce-bark,  sloping  to  tlie 
ground  on  one  side,  the  other  three  being  left 
open.  We  found  that  we  had,  at  least,  been 
luckier  than  the  other  party,  for  M.  had  brought 
back  his  convoy  without  even  seeing  a  moose. 
As  there  was  not  room  at  the  table  for  all  of 
us  to  breakfast  together,  these  hospitable 
woodmen  forced  us  to  sit  down  first,  although 
we  resisted  stoutly.  Our  breakfast  consisted 
of  fresh  bread,  fried  salt  pork,  stewed  whortle 
berries,  and  tea.  Our  kind  hosts  refused  to 
take  money  for  it,  nor  would  M.  accept  any 
thing  for  his  trouble.  This  seemed  even  more 
open-handed  when  I  remembered  that  they 
had  brought  all  their  stores  over  the  Carry 
upon  their  shoulders,  paying  an  ache  extra  for 
every  pound.  If  their  hospitality  lacked  any 
thing  of  hard  external  polish,  it  had  all  the 
deeper  grace  which  springs  only  from  sincere 
manliness.  I  have  rarely  sat  at  a  table  d'hote  , 
which  might  not  have  taken  a  lesson  from  ^  >. 
them  in  essential  courtesy.  I  have  never  seen  &-  <? 
a  finer  race  of  men.  They  have  all  the  virtues  7?<  •:•• 
of  the  sailor,  without  that  unsteady  roll  in  the 
gait  with  which  the  ocean  proclaims  itself  quite 


70  A   MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL. 

as  much  in  the  moral  as  in  the  physical  habit 
of  a  man.  They  appeared  to  me  to  have  hewn 
out  a  short  northwest  passage  through  wintry 
woods  to  those  spice-lands  of  character  which 
we  dwellers  in  cities  must  reach,  if  at  all,  by 
weary  voyages  in  the  monotonous  track  of  the 
trades. 

By  the  way,  as  we  were  embirching  last 
evening  for  our  moose-chase,  I  asked  what  I 
was  to  do  with  my  baggage.  "  Leave  it  here," 
said  our  guide,  and  he  laid  the  bags  upon  a 
platform  of  alders,  which  he  bent  down  to 
keep  them  beyond  reach  of  the  rising  water. 

"  Will  they  be  safe  here  ?  " 

"As  safe  as  they  would  be  locked  up  in 
your  house  at  home." 

And  so  I  found  them  at  my  return ;  only  the 
hay-makers  had  carried  them  to  their  camp  for 
greater  security  against  the  chances  of  the 
weather. 

We  got  back  to  Kineo  in  time  for  dinner ; 
and  in  the  afternoon,  the  weather  being  fine, 
went  up  the  mountain.  As  we  landed  at  the 
foot,  our  guide  pointed  to  the  remains  of  a 
red  shirt  and  a  pair  of  blanket  trousers. 


A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL.  71 

"  That,"  said  he,  "  is  the  reason  there  's  such 
a  trade  in  ready-made  clo'es.  A  suit  gits  pooty 
well  wore  out  by  the  time  a  camp  breaks  up  in 
the  spring,  and  the  lumberers  want  to  look 
about  right  when  they  come  back  into  the  set 
tlements,  so  they  buy  somethin'  ready-made 
and  heave  ole  bust-up  into  the  bush."  True 
enough,  thought  I,  this  is  the  Ready-made  Age. 
It  is  quicker  being  covered  than  fitted.  So 
we  all  go  to  the  slop-shop  and  come  out  uni 
formed,  every  mother's  son  with  habits  of 
thinking  and  doing  cut  on  one  pattern,  with 
no  special  reference  to  his  peculiar  build. 

Kineo  rises  1750  feet  above  the  sea,  and 
750  above  the  lake.  The  climb  is  very  easy, 
with  fine  outlooks  at  every  turn  over  lake 
and  forest.  Near  the  top  is  a  spring  of  water, 
which  even  Uncle  Zeb  might  have  allowed  to 
be  wholesome.  The  little  tin  dipper  was 
scratched  all  over  with  names,  showing  that 
vanity,  at  least,  is  not  put  out  of  breath  by  the 
ascent.  0  Ozymandias,  King  of  kings  !  We 
are  all  scrawling  on  something  of  the  kind. 
"  My  name  is  engraved  on  the  institutions  of 
my  country,"  thinks  the  statesman.  But, 


72  A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL. 

alas !  institutions  are  as  changeable  as  tin-dip 
pers ;  men  are  content  to  drink  the  same  old 
water,  if  the  shape  of  the  cup  only  be  new, 
and  our  friend  gets  two  lines  in  the  Biograph 
ical  Dictionaries.  After  all,  these  inscrip 
tions,  which  make  us  smile  up  here,  are  about 
as  valuable  as  the  Assyrian  ones  which  Hincks 
and  Rawlinson  read  at  cross-purposes.  Have 
we  not  Smiths  and  Browns  enough,  that  we 
must  ransack  the  ruins  of  Nimroud  for  more  ? 
Near  the  spring  we  met  a  Bloomer !  It  was 
the  first  chronic  one  I  had  ever  seen.  It 
struck  me  as  a  sensible  costume  for  the  occa 
sion,  and  it  will  be  the  only  wear  in  the  Greek 
Kalends,  when  women  believe  that  sense  is  an 
equivalent  for  grace. 

The  forest  primeval  is  best  seen  from  the 
top  of  a  mountain.  It  then  impresses  one  by 
its  extent,  like  an  Oriental  epic.  To  be  in  it 
is  nothing,  for  then  an  acre  is  as  good  as  a 
thousand  square  miles.  You  cannot  see  five 
rods  in  any  direction,  and  the  ferns,  mosses, 
and  tree-trunks  just  around  you  are  the  best 
of  it.  As  for  solitude,  night  will  make  a  better 
one  with  ten  feet  square  of  pitch  dark;  and 


A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL.  73 

mere  size  is  hardly  an  element  of  grandeur, 
except  in  works  of  man,  —  as  the  Colosseum. 
It  is  through  one  or  the  other  pole  of  vanity 
that  men  feel  the  sublime  in  mountains.  It  is 
either,  How  small  great  I  am  beside  it !  or, 
Big  as  you  are,  little  Fs  soul  will  hold  a  dozen 
of  you.  The  true  idea  of  a  forest  is  not  a  selva 
selvaggia,  but  something  humanized  a  little, 
as  we  imagine  the  forest  of  Arden,  with  trees 
standing  at  royal  intervals,  —  a  commonwealth, 
and  not  a  communism.  To  some  moods,  it  is 
congenial  to  look  over  endless  leagues  of  un 
broken  savagery  without  a  hint  of  man. 

Wednesday.  —  This  morning  fished.  Tele- 
machus  caught  a  laker  of  thirteen  pounds  and 
a  half,  and  I  an  overgrown  cusk,  which  we 
threw  away,  but  which  I  found  afterwards 
Agassiz  would  have  been  glad  of,  for  all  is  fish 
that  comes  to  his  net,  from  the  fossil  down. 
The  fish,  when  caught,  are  straightway  knocked 
on  the  head.  A  lad  who  went  with  us  seem 
ing  to  show  an  over-zeal  in  this  operation,  we 
remonstrated.  But  he  gave  a  good,  human 
reason  for  it,  —  "  He  no  need  to  haj  gone  and 
been  a  fish  if  he  did  n't  like  it,"  —  an  excuse 


74  A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL. 

which  superior  strength  or  cunning  has  always 
found  sufficient.  It  was  some  comfort,  in  this 
case,  to  think  that  St.  Jerome  believed  in  a 
limitation  of  God's  providence,  and  that  it  did 
not  extend  to  inanimate  things  or  creatures 
devoid  of  reason. 

Thus,  my  dear  Storg,  I  have  finished  my 
Oriental  adventures,  and  somewhat,  it  must  be 
owned,  in  the  diffuse  Oriental  manner.  There 
is  very  little  about  Moosehead  Lake  in  it,  and 
not  even  the  Latin  name  for  moose,  which  I 
might  have  obtained  by  sufficient  research.  If 
1  had  killed  one,  I  would  have  given  you  his 
name  in  that  dead  language.  I  did  not  profess 
to  give  you  an  account  of  the  lake  ;  but  a  jour 
nal,  and,  moreover,  my  journal,  with  a  little 
nature,  a  little  human  nature,  and  a  great  deal 
of  I  in  it,  which  last  ingredient  I  take  to  be 
the  true  spirit  of  this  species  of  writing ;  all 
the  rest  being  so  much  water  for  tender  throats 
which  cannot  take  it  neat. 


AT  SEA. 


AT  SEA. 


TIE  sea  was  meant  to  be  looked  at  from 
the  shore,  as  mountains  are  from  the 
plain.  Lucretius  made  this  discovery 
long  ago,  and  was  blunt  enough  to  blurt  it 
forth,  romance  and  sentiment  —  in  other  words, 
the  pretence  of  feeling  what  we  do  not  feel  — 
being  inventions  of  a  later  day.  To  be  sure, 
Cicero  used  to  twaddle  about  Greek  literature 
and  philosophy,  much  as  people  do  about 
ancient  art  nowadays  ;  but  I  rather  sympa 
thize  with  those  stout  old  Romans  who  de 
spised  both,  and  believed  that  to  found  an 
empire  was  as  grand  an  achievement  as  to 
build  an  epic  or  to  carve  a  statue.  But  though 
there  might  have  been  twaddle,  (as  why  not, 
since  there  was  a  Senate  ? )  I  rather  think  Pe- 


78  AT    SEA. 

trarch  was  the  first  clioragus  of  that  senti 
mental  dance  which  so  long  led  young  folks 
away  from  the  realities  of  life  like  the  piper  of 
Hamelin,  and  whose  succession  ended,  let  us 
hope,  with  Chateaubriand.  But  for  them, 
Byron,  whose  real  strength  lay  in  his  sincerity, 
would  never  have  talked  about  the  "  sea  bound 
ing  beneath  him  like  a  steed  that  knows  his 
rider,"  and  all  that  sort  of  thing.  Even  if  it 
had  been  true,  steam  has  been  as  fatal  to  that 
part  of  the  romance  of  the  sea  as  to  hand-loom 
weaving.  But  what  say  you  to  a  twelve  days' 
calm  such  as  we  dozed  through  in  mid-Atlantic 
and  in  mid- August  ?  I  know  nothing  so  tedious 
at  once  and  exasperating  as  that  regular  slap 
of  the  wilted  sails  when  the  ship  rises  and  falls 
with  the  slow  breathing  of  the  sleeping  sea, 
one  greasy,  brassy  swell  following  another, 
slow,  smooth,  immitigable  as  the  series  of 
Wordsworth's  "Ecclesiastical  Sonnets."  Even 
at  his  best,  Neptune,  in  a  tete-a-tete ,  has  a  way 
of  repeating  himself,  an  obtuseness  to  the  ne 
quid  nimis,  that  is  stupefying.  It  reminds  me 
of  organ-music  and  my  good  friend  Sebastian 
Bach.  A  fugue  or  two  will  do  very  well;  but 


AT    SEA.  79 

a  concert  made  up  of  nothing  else  is  altogether 
too  epic  for  me.  There  is  nothing  so  desper 
ately  monotonous  as  the  sea,  and  I  no  longer 
wonder  at  the  cruelty  of  pirates.  Fancy  an 
existence  in  which  the  coming  up  of  a  clumsy 
finback  whale,  who  says  Pooh  !  to  you  solemnly 
as  you  lean  over  the  taffrail,  is  an  event  as  ex 
citing  as  an  election  on  shore  !  The  dampness 
seems  to  strike  into  the  wits  as  into  the  lucifer- 
matches,  so  that  one  may  scratch  a  thought 
half  a  dozen  times  and  get  nothing  at  last  but 
a  faint  sputter,  the  forlorn  hope  of  fire,  which 
only  goes  far  enough  to  leave  a  sense  of  suffo 
cation  behind  it.  Even  smoking  becomes  an 
employment  instead  of  a  solace.  Who  less 
likely  to  come  to  their  wit's  end  than  W.  M.  T. 
and  A.  H.  C.  ?  Yet  I  have  seen  them  driven 
to  five  meals  a  day  for  mental  occupation.  I 
sometimes  sit  and  pity  Noah  ;  but  even  he  had 
this  advantage  over  all  succeeding  navigators, 
that,  wherever  he  landed,  he  was  sure  to  get 
no  ill  news  from  home.  He  should  be  canon 
ized  as  the  patron-saint  of  newspaper  corre 
spondents,  being  the  only  man  who  ever  had 
the  very  last  authentic  intelligence  from  every 
where. 


80  AT    SEA. 

The  finback  whale  recorded  just  above  has 
much  the  look  of  a  brown-paper  parcel,  —  the 
whitish  stripes  that  run  across  him  answering 
for  the  pack-thread.  He  has  a  kind  of  acci 
dental  hole  in  the  top  of  his  head,  through 
which  he  pooh-poohs  the  rest  of  creation,  and 
which  looks  as  if  it  had  been  made  by  the 
chance  thrust  of  a  chestnut  rail.  He  was  our 
first  event.  Our  second  was  harpooning  a 
sunfisli,  which  basked  dozing  on  the  lap  of  the 
sea,  looking  so  much  Iik3  the  giant  turtle  of 
an  alderman's  dream,  that  I  am  persuaded  he 
would  have  made  mock-turtle  soup  rather 
than  acknowledge  his  imposture.  But  he 
broke  away  just  as  they  were  hauling  him 
over  the  side,  and  sank  placidly  through  the 
clear  water,  leaving  behind  him  a  crimson  trail 
that  wavered  a  moment  and  was  gone. 

The  sea,  though,  has  better  sights  than  these. 
When  we  were  up  with  the  Azores,  we  began 
to  meet  flying-fish  and  Portuguese  men-of- 
war  beautiful  as  the  galley  of  Cleopatra,  tiny 
craft  that  dared  these  seas  before  Columbus. 
I  have  seen  one  of  the  former  rise  from  the 
crest  of  a  wave,  and,  glancing  from  another 


AT   SEA.  81 

some  two  hundred  feet  beyond,  take  a  fresh 
flight  of  perhaps  as  long.  How  Calderon 
would  have  similized  this  pretty  creature  had 
he  ever  seen  it !  How  would  he  have  run  him 
up  and  down  the  gamut  of  simile  !  If  a  fish, 
then  a  fish  with  wings ;  if  a  bird,  then  a  bird 
with  fins;  and  so  on,  keeping  up  the  poor 
shuttle-cock  of  a  conceit  as  is  his  wont. 
Indeed,  the  poor  thing  is  the  most  killing  bait 
for  a  comparison,  and  I  assure  you  I  have 
three  or  four  in  my  inkstand;  — but  be  calm, 
they  shall  stay  there.  Moore,  who  looked  on 
all  nature  as  a  kind  of  Gradns  ad  Parnassum, 
a  thesaurus  of  similitude,  and  spent  his  life  in 
a  game  of  What  is  my  thought  like?  with 
himself,  did  the  flying-fish  on  his  way  to  Ber 
muda.  So  I  leave  him  in  peace. 

The  most  beautiful  thing  I  have  seen  at  sea, 
all  the  more  so  that  I  had  never  heard  of  it, 
is  the  trail  of  a  shoal  of  fish  through  the  phos 
phorescent  water.  It  is  like  a  flight  of  silver 
rockets,  or  the  streaming  of  northern  lights 
through  that  silent  nether  heaven.  I  thought 
nothing  could  go  beyond  that  rustling  star- 
foam  which  was  churned  up  by  our  ship's 


82  AT    SEA. 

bows,  or  those  eddies  and  disks  of  dreamy 
flame  that  rose  and  wandered  out  of  sight 
behind  us. 

'T  was  fire  our  ship  was  plunging  through, 
Cold  fire  that  o'er  the  quarter  flew  ; 
And  wandering  moons  of  idle  flame 
Grew  full  and  waned,  and  went  and  came, 
Dappling  with  light  the  huge  sea-snake 
That  slid  behind  us  in  the  wake. 

But  there  was  something  even  more  delicately 
rare  in  the  apparition  of  the  fish,  as  they 
turned  up  in  gleaming  furrows  the  latent 
moonshine  which  the  ocean  seemed  to  have 
hoarded  against  these  vacant  interlunar  nights. 
In  the  Mediterranean  one  day,  as  we  were 
lying  becalmed,  I  observed  the  water  freckled 
with  dingy  specks,  which  at  last  gathered  to  a 
pinkish  scum  on  the  surface.  The  sea  had 
been  so  phosphorescent  for  some  nights,  that 
when  the  Captain  gave  me  my  bath,  by  dous 
ing  me  with  buckets  from  the  house  on  deck, 
the  spray  flew  off  my  head  and  shoulders  in 
sparks.  It  occurred  to  me  that  this  dirty- 
looking  scum  might  be  the  luminous  matter, 
and  I  had  a  pailful  dipped  up  to  keep  till  after 


AT    SEA.  83 

dark.  When  I  went  to  look  at  it  after  night 
fall,  it  seemed  at  first  perfectly  dead;  but 
when  I  shook  it,  the  whole  broke  out  into 
what  I  can  only  liken  to  milky  flames,  whose 
lambent  silence  was  strangely  beautiful,  and 
startled  me  almost  as  actual  projection  might  an 
alchemist.  I  could  not  bear  to  be  the  death 
of  so  much  beauty;  so  I  poured  it  all  over 
board  again. 

Another  sight  worth  taking  a  voyage  for  is 
that  of  the  sails  by  moonlight.  Our  course 
was  "south  and  by  east,  half  south,"  so  that 
we  seemed  bound  for  the  full  moon  as  she 
rolled  up  over  our  wavering  horizon.  Then 
I  used  to  go  forward  to  the  bowsprit  and  look 
back.  Our  ship  was  a  clipper,  with  every  rag 
set,  stunsails,  sky-scrapers,  and  all;  nor  was 
it  easy  to  believe  that  such  a  wonder  could 
be  built  of  canvas  as  that  white  many-storied 
pile  of  cloud  that  stooped  over  me,  or  drew 
back  as  we  rose  and  fell  with  the  waves. 

These  are  all  the  wonders  I  can  recall  of 
my  five  weeks  at  sea,  except  the  sun.  Were 
you  ever  alone  with  the  sun  ?  You  think  it  a 
very  simple  question ;  but  I  never  was,  hi  the 


84  AT    SEA. 

full  sense  of  the  word,  till  I  was  held  up  to 
him  one  cloudless  day  on  the  broad  buckler 
of  the  ocean.  I  suppose  one  might  have  the 
same  feeling  in  the  desert.  I  remember  get 
ting  something  like  it  years  ago,  when  I 
climbed  alone  to  the  top  of  a  mountain,  and 
lay  face  up  on  the  hot  gray  moss,  striving  to 
get  a  notion  of  how  an  Arab  might  feel.  It 
was  my  American  commentary  of  the  Koran, 
and  not  a  bad  one.  In  a  New  England  win 
ter,  too,  when  everything  is  gagged  with  snow, 
as  if  some  gigantic  physical  geographer  were 
taking  a  cast  of  the  earth's  face  in  plaster,  the 
bare  knob  of  a  hill  will  introduce  you  to  the 
sun  as  a  comparative  stranger.  But  at  sea 
you  may  be  alone  with  him  day  after  day,  and 
almost  all  day  long.  I  never  understood 
before  that  nothing  short  of  full  daylight  can 
give  the  supremest  sense  of  solitude.  Dark 
ness  will  not  do  so,  for  the  imagination  peo 
ples  it  with  more  shapes  than  ever  were 
poured  from  the  frozen  loins  of  the  populous 
North.  The  sun,  I  sometimes  think,  is  a 
little  grouty  at  sea,  especially  at  high  noon, 
feeling  that  he  wastes  his  beams  on  those 


AT    SEA.  85 

fruitless  furrows.  It  is  otherwise  with  the 
moon.  She  "comforts  the  night,"  as  Chap 
man  finely  says,  and  I  always  found  her  a 
companionable  creature. 

In  the  ocean-horizon  I  took  untiring  delight. 
It  is  the  true  magic-circle  of  expectation  and 
conjecture,  —  almost  as  good  as  a  wishing-ring. 
What  will  rise  over  that  edge  we  sail  toward 
daily  and  never  overtake  ?  A  sail  ?  an  island  ? 
the  new  shore  of  the  Old  World  ?  Something 
rose  every  day,  which  I  need  not  have  gone  so 
far  to  see,  but  at  whose  levee  I  was  a  much 
more  faithful  courtier  than  on  shore.  A  cloud 
less  sunrise  in  mid-ocean  is  beyond  comparison 
for  simple  grandeur.  It  is  like  Dante's  style, 
bare  and  perfect.  Naked  sun  meets  naked 
sea,  the  true  classic  of  nature.  There  may  be 
more  sentiment  in  morning  on  shore, — the 
shivering  fairy-jewelry  of  dew,  the  silver  point- 
lace  of  sparkling  hoar-frost,  —  but  there  is  also 
more  complexity,  more  of  the  romantic.  The 
one  savors  of  the  elder  Edda,  the  other  of  the 
Minnesingers. 

And  I  thus  floating,  lonely  elf, 
A  kind  of  planet  by  myself, 


86  AT   SEA. 

The  mists  draw  up  and  furl  away, 

And  in  the  east  a  warming  gray, 

Faint  as  the  tint  of  oaken  woods 

When  o'er  their  buds  May  breathes  and  broods, 

Tells  that  the  golden  sunrise-tide 

Is  lapsing  up  earth's  thirsty  side, 

Each  moment  purpling  on  the  crest 

Of  some  stark  billow  farther  west  : 

And  as  the  sea-moss  droops  and  hears 

The  gurgling  flood  that  nears  and  nears, 

And  then  with  tremulous  content 

Floats  out  each  thankful  filament, 

So  waited  I  until  it  came, 

God's  daily  miracle,  —  0  shame 

That  I  had  seen  so  many  days 

Unthankful,  without  wondering  praise, 

Not  recking  more  this  bliss  of  earth 

Than  the  cheap  fire  that  lights  my  hearth  ! 

But  now  glad  thoughts  and  holy  pour 

Into  my  heart,  as  once  a  year 

To  San  Miniato's  open  door, 

In  long  procession,  chanting  clear, 

Through  slopes  of  sun,  through  shadows  hoar, 

The  coupled  monks  slow-climbing  sing, 

And  like  a  golden  censer  swing 

From  rear  to  front,  from  front  to  rear 

Their  alternating  bursts  of  praise, 


AT   SEA.  87 

Till  the  roof's  fading  seraphs  gaze 
Down  through  an  odorous  mist,  that  crawls 
Lingeringly  up  the  darkened  walls, 
And  the  dim  arches,  silent  long, 
Are  startled  with  triumphant  song. 

I  wrote  yesterday  that  the  sea  still  rimmed 
our  prosy  lives  with  mystery  and  conjecture. 
But  one  is  shut  up  on  shipboard  like  Mon 
taigne  in  his  tower,  with  nothing  to  do  but  to 
review  his  own  thoughts  and  contradict  him 
self.  Dire,  redire,  et  me  contredire,  will  be  the 
staple  of  my  journal  till  I  see  land.  I  say  noth 
ing  of  such  matters  as  the  montagna  bruna  on 
•which  Ulysses  was  wrecked ;  but  since  the  six 
teenth  century  could  any  man  reasonably  hope 
to  stumble  on  one  of  those  wonders  which  were 
cheap  as  dirt  in  the  days  of  St.  Saga  ?  Faustus, 
Don  Juan,  and  Tanhau'ser  are  the  last  ghosts 
of  legend,  that  lingered  almost  till  the  Gallic 
cock-crow  of  universal  enlightenment  and  dis 
illusion.  The  Public  School  has  done  for  Im 
agination.  What  shall  I  see  in  Outre-Mer,  or 
on  the  way  thither,  but  what  can  be  seen  with 
eyes  ?  To  be  sure,  I  stick  by  the  sea-serpent, 


88  AT   SEA. 

and  would  fain  believe  that  science  lias  scotched, 
not  killed,  him.  Nor  is  he  to  be  lightly  given 
up,  for,  like  the  old  Scandinavian  snake,  he 
binds  together  for  us  the  two  hemispheres  of 
Past  and  Present,  of  Belief  and  Science.  He 
is  the  link  which  knits  us  seaboard  Yankees 
with  our  Norse  progenitors,  interpreting  be 
tween  the  age  of  the  dragon  and  that  of  the 
railroad  train.  We  have  made  ducks  and 
drakes  of  that  large  estate  of  wonder  and 
delight  bequeathed  to  us  by  ancestral  vikings, 
and  this  alone  remains  to  us  unthrift  heirs  of 
Linn. 

I  feel  an  undefined  respect  for  a  man  who 
has  seen  the  sea-serpent.  He  is  to  his  brother- 
fishers  what  the  poet  is  to  his  fellow-men. 
Where  they  have  seen  nothing  better  than  a 
school  of  horse-mackerel,  or  the  idle  coils  of 
ocean  around  Half-way  Rock,  he  has  caught 
authentic  glimpses  of  the  withdrawing  mantle- 
hem  of  the  Edda  age.  I  care  not  for  the 
monster  himself.  It  is  not  the  thing,  but  the 
belief  in  the  thing,  that  is  dear  to  me.  May 
it  be  long  before  Professor  Owen  is  comforted 
with  the  sight  of  his  unfleshed  vertebrae,  long 


AT    SEA.  89 

before  they  stretch  many  a  rood  behind  Kim- 
ball's  or  Barnum's  glass,  reflected  in  the  shal 
low  orbs  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Public,  which  stare, 
but  see  not !  When  we  read  that  Captain* 
Spalding,  of  the  pink-stern  Three  follies,  has 
beheld  him  rushing  through  the  brine  like  an 
infinite  series  of  bewitched  mackerel-casks,  we 
feel  that  the  mystery  of  old  Ocean,  at  least, 
has  not  yet  been  sounded,  —  that  Faith  .and 
Awe  survive  there  unevaporate.  I  once  ven 
tured  the  horse-mackerel  theory  to  an  old 
fisherman,  browner  than  a  tomcod.  "Hos- 
mackril ! "  he  exclaimed  indignantly,  "  hos- 
mackril  be  — "  (here  he  used  a  phrase  com 
monly  indicated  in  laical  literature  by  the  same 
sign  which  serves  for  Doctorate  in  Divinity,) 
"don't  yer  spose  /  know  a  hos-mackril  ?" 
The  intonation  of  that  "/"  would  have  si 
lenced  Professor  Monkbarns  Owen  with  his 
provoking  phoca  forever.  What  if  one  should 
ask  him  if  he  knew  a  trilobite  ? 

The  fault  of  modern  travellers  is,  that  they 
see  nothing  out  of  sight.  They  talk  of  eocene 
periods  and  tertiary  formations,  and  tell  us 
how  the  world  looked  to  the  plesiosaur.  They 


90  AT    SEA. 

take  science  (or  nescience)  with  them,  instead 
of  that  soul  of  generous  trust  their  elders  had. 
All  their  senses  are  sceptics  and  doubters, 
'materialists  reporting  things  for  other  sceptics 
to  doubt  still  further  upon.  Nature  becomes 
a  reluctant  witness  upon  the  stand,  badgered 
with  geologist  hammers  and  phials  of  acid. 
There  have  been  no  travellers  since  those 
included  in  Hakluyt  and  Purchas,  except 
Martin,  perhaps,  who  saw  an  inch  or  two  into 
the  invisible  at  the  Orkneys.  We  have  peri 
patetic  lecturers,  but  no  more  travellers. 
Travellers'  stories  are  no  longer  proverbial. 
We  have  picked  nearly  every  apple  (wormy  or 
otherwise)  from  the  world's  tree  of  knowledge, 
and  that  without  an  Eve  to  tempt  us.  Two 
or  three  have  hitherto  hung  luckily  beyond 
reach  on  a  lofty  bough  shadowing  the  interior 
of  Africa,  but  there  is  a  German  Doctor  at  this 
very  moment  pelting  at  them  with  sticks  and 
stones.  It  may  be  only  next  week,  and  these 
too,  bitten  by  geographers  and  geologists,  will 
be  thrown  away. 

Analysis  is  carried  into  everything.     Even 
Deity  is  subjected  to  chemic  tests.     We  must 


AT    SEA.  91 

have  exact  knowledge,  a  cabinet  stuck  full  of 
facts  pressed,  dried,  or  preserved  in  spirits  in 
stead  of  the  large,  vague  world  our  fathers  had. 
With  them  science  was  poetry ;  with  us,  poetry 
is  science.  Our  modern  Eden  is  a  hortus  sic- 
cus.  Tourists  defraud  rather  than  enrich  us. 
They  have  not  that  sense  of  aesthetic  propor 
tion  which  characterized  the  elder  traveller. 
Earth  is  no  longer  the  fine  work  of  art  it  was, 
for  nothing  is  left  to  the  imagination.  Job 
Hortop,  arrived  at  the  height  of  the  Bermudas, 
thinks  it  full  time  to  indulge  us  in  a  merman. 
Nay,  there  is  a  story  told  by  Webster,  in  his 
"  Witchcraft,"  of  a  merman  with  a  mitre,  who, 
on  being  sent  back  to  his  watery  diocese  of  fin- 
land,  made  what  advances  he  could  toward  an 
episcopal  benediction  by  bowing  his  head  thrice. 
Doubtless  he  had  been  consecrated  by  St. 
Antony  of  Padua.  A  dumb  bishop  would  be 
sometimes  no  unpleasant  phenomenon,  by  the 
way.  Sir  John  Hawkins  is  not  satisfied  with 
telling  us  about  the  merely  sensual  Canaries, 
but  is  generous  enough  to  throw  us  in  a  hand 
ful  of  "  certain  flitting  islands "  to  boot. 
Henry  Hawkes  describes  the  visible  Mexican 


92  AT    SEA. 

cities,  and  then  is  not  so  frugal  but  that  he  can 
give  us  a  few  invisible  ones.  Thus  do  these 
generous  ancient  mariners  make  children  of  us 
again.  Their  successors  show  us  an  earth 
effete  and  past  bearing,  tracing  out  with  the 
eyes  of  industrious  fleas  every  wrinkle  and 
crowfoot. 

The  journals  of  the  elder  navigators  are 
prose  Odysseys.  The  geographies  of  our  an 
cestors  were  works  of  fancy  and  imagination. 
They  read  poems  where  we  yawn  over  items. 
Their  world  was  a  huge  wonder-horn,  ex- 
haustless  as  that  which  Thor  strove  to  drain. 
Ours  would  scarce  quench  the  small  thirst  of 
a  bee.  No  modern  voyager  brings  back  the 
magical  foundation-stones  of  a  Tempest.  No 
Marco  Polo,  traversing  the  desert  beyond  the 
city  of  Lok,  would  tell  of  things  able  to  inspire 
the  mind  of  Milton  with 

"  Calling  shapes  and  beckoning  shadows  dire, 
And  airy  tongues  that  syllable  men's  names 
On  sands  and  shores  and  desert  wildernesses." 

It  was  easy  enough  to  believe  the  story  of 
Dante,  when  two  thirds  of  even  the  upper- 


AT    SEA.  93 

world  were  yet  untraversed  and  unmapped. 
With  every  step  of  the  recent  traveller  our 
inheritance  of  the  wonderful  is  diminished. 
Those  beautifully  pictured  notes  of  the  Possi 
ble  are  redeemed  at  a  ruinous  discount  in  the 
hard  and  cumbrous  coin  of  the  actual.  How 
are  we  not  defrauded  and  impoverished  ?  Does 
California  vie  with  El  Dorado  ?  or  are  Bruce's 
Abyssinian  kings  a  set-off  for  Prester  John  ? 
A  bird  in  the  bush  is  worth  two  in  the  hand. 
And  if  the  philosophers  have  not  even  yet 
been  able  to  agree  whether  the  world  has  any 
existence  independent  of  ourselves,  how  do  we 
not  gain  a  loss  in  every  addition  to  the  cata 
logue  of  Yulgar  Errors  ?  Where  are  the 
fishes  which  nidificated  in  trees  ?  Where  the 
monopodes  sheltering  themselves  from  the  sun 
beneath  their  single  umbrella-like  foot,  —  um 
brella-like  in  everything  but  the  fatal  necessity 
of  being  borrowed?  Where  the  Acephali, 
with  whom  Herodotus,  in  a  kind  of  ecstasy, 
wound  up  his  climax  of  men  with  abnormal 
top-pieces  ?  Where  the  Roc  whose  eggs  are 
possibly  boulders,  needing  no  far-fetched  the 
ory  of  glacier  or  iceberg  to  account  for  them  ? 


94  AT    SEA. 

Where  the  tails  of  the  men  of  Kent  ?  Where 
the  no  legs  of  the  bird  of  paradise  ?  Where 
the  Unicorn,  with  that  single  horn  of  his,  sov 
ereign  against  all  manner  of  poisons  ?  Where 
the  Fountain  of  Youth?  Where  that  Thes- 
salian  spring,  which,  without  cost  to  the  coun 
try,  convicted  and  punished  perjurers  ?  Where 
the  Amazons  of  Orellaua?  All  these,  and  a 
thousand  other  varieties,  we  have  lost,  and 
have  got  nothing  instead  of  them.  And  those 
who  have  robbed  us  of  them  have  stolen  that 
which  not  enriches  themselves.  It  is  so  much 
wealth  cast  into  the  sea  beyond  all  approach 
of  diving-bells.  We  owe  no  thanks  to  Mr.  J. 
E.  Worcester,  whose  Geography  we  studied 
enforcedly  at  school.  Yet  even  he  had  his 
relentings,  and  in  some  softer  moment  vouch 
safed  us  a  fine,  inspiring  print  of  the  Mael 
strom,  answerable  to  the  twenty-four  mile 
diameter  of  its  suction.  Year  by  year,  more 
and  more  of  the  world  gets  disenchanted. 
Even  the  icy  privacy  of  the  arctic  and  antarctic 
circles  is  invaded.  Our  youth  are  no  longer 
ingenious,  as  indeed  no  ingenuity  is  demanded 
of  them.  Everything  is  accounted  for,  every- 


AT    SEA. 


95 


thing  cut  and  dried,  and  the  world  may  be  put 
together  as  easily  as  the  fragments  of  a  dis 
sected  map.  The  Mysterious  bounds  nothing 
now  on  the  North,  South,  East,  or  West.  We 
have  played  Jack  Horner  with  our  earth,  till 
there  is  never  a  plum  left  in  it. 


THE   FARMER'S   BOY. 


SPRING. 


INVOCATION,  ETC.  SEED-TIME.       HARROWING.       MORNING  WALKS. 

MILKING.       THE  DAIRY.       SUFFOLK     CHEESE.       SPRING     COMING 

FORTH.       SHEEP  FOND    OF  CHANGING.       LAMBS  AT    PLAY.    ^THE 
BUTCHER,     ETC. 


COME,  blest  spirit!  whatso'er  thou 

art, 
Thou  kindling  warmth  that  hover'st 

round  my  heart, 
Sweet  inmate,  hail !  thou  source  of  sterling 

joy, 

That  poverty  itself  cannot  destroy, 
Be  thou  my  Muse  ;  and,  faithful  still  to  me, 
Retrace  the  paths  of  wild  obscurity. 
No  deeds  of  arms  my  humble  lines  rehearse ; 
No  Alpine  wonders  thunder  through  my  verse, 
The  roaring  cataract,  the  snow-topt  hill, 


6  SPRING. 

Inspiring  awe,  till  breath  itself  stands  still : 
Nature's  sublimer  scenes  ne'er  charmed  mine 

eyes, 
Nor  science  led  me  through  the  boundless 

skies ; 

From  meaner  objects  far  my  raptures  flow  ; 
0  point  these  raptures  !  bid  my  bosom  glow ! 
And  lead  my  soul  to  ecstasies  of  praise 
For  all  the  blessings  of  my  infant  days  ! 
Bear  me  through  regions  where  gay  Fancy 

dwells  ; 
But  mould  to  Truth's  fair  form  what  Memory 

tells. 

Live,  trifling  incidents,  and  grace  my  song, 
That  to  the  humblest  menial  belong  : 
To  him  whose  drudgery  unheeded  goes, 
His  joys  unreckoned  as  his  cares  or  woes  ; 
Though  joys  and  cares  in  every  path  are  sown, 
And  youthful  minds  have  feelings  of  their 

own, 

Quick-springing  sorrows,  transient  as  the  dew, 
Delights  from  trifles,  trifles  ever  new.r 
'T  was  thus  with   Giles  :  meek,   fatherless, 

and  poor  : 


SPRING.  7 

Labor  his  portion,  but  he  felt  no  more ; 
No  stripes,  no  tyranny  his  steps  pursued  : 
His  life  was  constant,  cheerful  servitude  : 
Strange  to  the  world,  he  wore  a  bashful  look, 
The  fields  his  study,  Nature  was  his  book  ; 
And,  as  revolving  seasons  changed  the  scene 
From  heat  to  cold,  tempestuous  to  serene, 
Though  every  change  still  varied  his  employ, 
Yet  each  new  duty  brought  its  share  of  joy. 

Where  noble  Grafton  spreads  his  rich  do 
mains, 
Round  Euston's  watered  vale  and   sloping 

plains, 
Where  woods  and  groves  in  solemn  grandeur 

rise, 

Where  the  kite  brooding  unmolested  flies, 
The  woodcock  and  the  painted  pheasant  race, 
And  skulking  foxes,  destined  for  the  chase, 
There  Giles,  untaught  and  unrepining,  strayed 
Through  every  copse,  and  grove,  and  winding 

glade  ; 
There  his  first  thoughts  to  Nature's  charms 

inclined, 
That  stamps  devotion  on  the  inquiring  mind. 


8  SPRING. 

A  little  farm  his  generous  master  tilled, 
Who  with  peculiar  grace  his  station  filled  ; 
By  deeds  of  hospitality  endeared, 
Served  from  affection,  for  his  worth  revered  ; 
A  happy  offspring  blest  his  plenteous  board, 
His  fields  were  fruitful,  and  his  barns  well 

stored, 

And  fourscore  ewes  he  fed  ;  a  sturdy  team  ; 
And   lowing    kine   that   grazed    beside   the 

stream  : 

Unceasing  industry  he  !iept  in  view  ; 
And  never  lacked  a  job  for  Giles  to  do. 

Fled  now  the  sullen  murmurs  of  the  North, 
The   splendid  raiment  of  the  Spring  peeps 

forth  ; 

Her  universal  green,  and  the  clear  sky, 
Delight  still  more  and  more  the  gazing  eye. 
Wide  o'er  the  fields,  in  rising  moisture  strong, 
Shoots  up  the  simple  flower,  or  creeps  along 
The  mellowed  soil ;  imbibing  fairer  hues, 
Or  sweets  from  frequent  showers  and  evening 

dews, 

That  summon  from  their  sheds  the  slumber 
ing  ploughs, 


SPRING.  9 

While  health  impregnates  every  breeze  that 

blows : 

No  wheels  support  the  diving,  pointed  share  ; 
No  groaning  ox  is  doomed  to  labor  there  ; 
No  helpmates  teach  the  docile  steed  his  road 
(Alike    unknown   the    ploughboy   and    the 

goad)  ; 

But,  unassisted  through  each  toilsome  day, 
With  smiling  brow  the  ploughman  cleaves 

his  way, 

Draws  his  fresh  parallels,  and,  widening  still, 
Treads  slow  the  heavy  dale,  or  climbs  the  hill : 
Strong  on  the  wind  his  busy  followers  play, 
Where  writhing  earthworms  meet  the  unwel 
come  day  ; 

Till  all  is  changed,  and  hill  and  level  down 
Assume  a  livery  of  sober  brown  ; 
Again  disturbed,  when  Giles  with  wearying 

strides 
From  ridge  to  ridge  the  ponderous  harrow 

guides, 

His  heels  deep  sinking  every  step  he  goes, 
Till  dirt  adhesive  loads  his  clouted  shoes. 
Welcome,  green  headland !  firm  beneath  his 

feet; 


10  SPRING. 

Welcome,  the  friendly  bank's  refreshing  seat  ; 
There,  warm   with  toil,  his  panting   horses 

browse 

Their  sheltering  canopy  of  pendent  boughs  ; 
Till  rest,  delicious,  chase  each  transient  pain, 
And  new-born  vigor  swell  in  every  vein. 
Hour  after  hour,  and  day  to  day  succeeds, 
Till  every  clod  and  deep-drawn  furrow  spreads 
To  crumbling  mould,  a  level  surface  clear, 
And  strewed  with  corn  to  crown  the  rising 

year  ; 
And   o'er  the  whole  Giles,  once  transverse 

again, 

In  earth's  moist  bosom  buries  up  the  grain. 
The  work  is  done  :  no  more  to  man  is  given  ; 
The  grateful  farmer  trusts  the  rest  to  Heaven. 
Yet  oft  with  anxious  heart  he  looks  around, 
And  marks  the  first  green  blade  that  breaks 

the  ground  ; 

In  fancy  sees  his  trembling  oats  uprun, 
His  tufted  barley  yellow  with  the  sun  ; 
Sees  clouds  propitious  shed  their  timely  store, 
And  all  his  harvest  gathered  round  his  door. 
But  still  unsafe  the  big  swoln  grain  below, 
A  favorite  morsel  with  the  rook  and  crow  ;  * 


SPRING.  11 

From  field  to  field  the  flock  increasing  goes ; 
To  level  crops  most  formidable  foes  : 
Their  danger  well  the  wary  plunderers  know, 
And   place   a   watch   on   some   conspicuous 

bough  ; 

Yet  oft  the  skulking  gunner  by  surprise 
Will  scatter  death  amongst  them  as  they  rise. 
These,  hung  in  triumph  round  the  spacious 

field, 

At  best  will  but  a  short-lived  terror  yield  : 
Nor  guards  of  property  (not  penal  law, 
But  harmless  riflemen  of  rags  and  straw)  ; 
Familiarized  to  these  they  boldly  rove, 
Nor  heed  such  sentinels  that  never  move. 
Let  then  your  birds  lie  prostrate  on  the  earth, 
In   dying  posture,  and  with  wings  stretcht 

forth  ! 

Shift  them  at  eve  or  morn  from  place  to  place, 
And  death  shall  terrify  the  pilfering  race  ; 
In  the   mid  air,  while   circling  round  and 

round, 
They  call  their  lifeless   comrades   from  the 

ground  ; 
With  quickening  wing,  and   notes  of  loucl 

alarm, 


12  SPRING. 

Warn  the  whole  flock  to  shun  the  impending 

harm. 
This  task  had  Giles,  in  fields  remote  from 

home  ; 

Oft  has  he  wished  the  rosy  morn  to  come  : 
Yet  never  famed  was  he  nor  foremost  found 
To  break  the  seal  of  sleep ;  his  sleep  was 

sound : 
But  when  at  daybreak  summoned  from  his 

bed, 
Light   as   the   lark    that    carolled   o'er    his 

head. 

His  sandy  way,  deep-worn  by  hasty  showers, 
Overarched  with   oaks  that  formed  fantastic 

bowers, 

Waving  aloft  their  towering  branches  proud, 
In  borrowed  tinges  from  the  eastern  cloud, 
Gave  inspiration,  pure  as  ever  flowed, 
And  genuine  transport  in  his  bosom  glowed. 
His  own  shrill  matin  joined  the  various  notes 
Of  Nature's  music,  from  a  thousand  throats  : 
The  blackbird  strove  with  emulation  sweet, 
And  Echo  answered  from  her  close  retreat , 
The  sporting  white-throat,  on  some  twig's  end 

borne, 


SPRING.  13 

Poured  hymns  to  freedom  and  the  rising 
rnorn ; 

Stopt  in  her  song,  perchance  the  starting 
thrush 

Shook  a  white  shower  from  the  blackthorn- 
bush, 

Where  dew-drops  thick  as  early  blossoms 
hung, 

And  trembled  as  the  minstrel  sweetly  sung. 

Across  his  path,  in  either  grove  to  hide, 

The  timid  rabbit  scouted  by  his  side  ; 

Or  pheasant  boldly  stalked  along  the  road, 

Whose  gold  and  purple  tints  alternate  glowed. 

But  groves  no  farther  fenced  the  devious 

way  ; 

A  wide-extended  heath  before  him  lay, 
Where  on  the  grass  the  stagnant  shower  had 

run, 

And  shone  a  mirror  to  the  rising  sun, 
Thus  doubly  seen  to  light  a  distant  wood, 
To  give  new  life  to  each  expanding  bud  ; 
And  chase  away  the  dewy  foot-marks  found, 
Where  prowling  Reynard  trod  his  nightly 

round ; 


14  SPRING. 

To  shun  whose  thefts  't  was  Giles's  evening 

care, 

His  feathered  victims  to  suspend  in  air, 
High  on  the   bough  that   nodded   o'er  his 

head, 
And  thus  each  morn  to  strew  the  field  with 

dead. 

His    simple  errand  done,  he  homeward 

hies  ; 

Another  instantly  its  place  supplies. 
The  clattering  dairy-maid  immersed  in  steam, 
Singing  and  scrubbing,  midst  her  milk  and 

cream, 
Bawls  out,  "  Go  fetch  the  cows  ! "  —  he  hears 

no  more  ; 
For  pigs,  and  ducks,  and  turkeys  throng  the 

door, 

And  sitting  hens,  for  constant  war  prepared  ; 
A  concert  strange  to  that  which  late  he  heard. 
Straight  to  the  meadow  then  he  whistling 

goes; 

With  well-known  halloo  calls  his  lazy  cows  : 
Down  the  rich  pasture  heedlessly  they  graze, 
Or  hear  the  summons  with  an  idle  gaze  ; 


SPRING.  15 

For  well  they  know  the  cow-yard  yields  no 
more 

Its  tempting  fragrance,  nor  its  wintry  store. 

Reluctance  marks  their  steps,  sedate  and 
slow ! 

The  right  of  conquest  all  the  law  they  know  J 

The  strong  press  on,  the  weak  by  turns  suc 
ceed, 

And  one  superior  always  takes  the  lead  ; 

Is  ever  foremost,  wheresoe'er  they  stray ; 

Allowed  precedence,  undisputed  sway  ; 

With  jealous  pride  her  station  is  maintained, 

For  many  a  broil  that  post  of  honor  gained. 

At  home,  the  yard  affords  a  grateful  scene  ; 

For  Spring  makes  e'en  a  miry  cow-yard  clean. 

Thence  from  its  chalky  bed  behold  con 
veyed 

The  rich  manure  that  drenching  Winter  made, 

Which,  piled  near  home,  grows  green  with 
many  a  weed, 

A  promised  nutriment  for  Autumn's  seed. 

Forth  comes  the  maid,  and  like  the  morning 
smiles  ; 

The  mistress  too,  and  followed  close  by  Giles. 

A  friendly  tripod  forms  their  humble  seat, 


16  SPRING. 

With   pails  bright   scoured,   and   delicately 

sweet. 
Where  shadowing  elms  obstruct  the  morning 

ray, 

Begins  the  work,  begins  the  simple  lay  ; 
The  full-charged   udder  yields  its  willing 

streams, 
While    Mary   sings    some    lover's    amorous 

dreams ; 
And  crouching  Giles  beneath  a  neighboring 

tree 
Tugs   o'er  his  pail,  and  chants  with   equal 

glee  ; 

Whose  hat  with  tattered  brim,  of  nap  so  bare, 
From  the  cow's  side  purloins  a  coat  of  hair, 
A  mottled  ensign  of  his  harmless  trade, 
An  unambitious,  peaceable  cockade. 
As  unambitious  too  that  cheerful  aid 
The  mistress  yields  beside  her  rosy  maid ; 
With  joy  she  views   her  plenteous  reeking 

store, 

And  bears  a  brimmer  to  the  dairy  door : 
Her  cows  dismissed,  the   luscious  mead  to 

roam, 
Till  eve  again  recall  them  loaded  home. 


SPRING.  17 

And  now  the  dairy  claims  her  choicest  care, 
And  half  her  household   find   employment 

there : 
Slow  rolls  the  churn,  its  load   of  clogging 

cream 

At  once  foregoes  its  quality  and  name  : 
From  knotty  particles  first  floating  wide, 
Congealing  butter 's  dashed  from  side  to  side ; 
Streams  of  new  milk  through  flowing  coolers 

stray, 

And  snow-white  curd  abounds,  and  whole 
some  whey. 
Due  north  the  unglazed  windows,  cold  and 

clear, 

For  warming  sunbeams  are  unwelcome  here. 
Brisk  goes  the  work  beneath  each  busy  hand, 
And  Giles  must  trudge,  whoever  gives  com 
mand  ; 

A  Gibeonite  that  serves  them  all  by  turns  : 
He  drains  the   pump,  from  him   the   fagot 

burns  ; 

From  him  the  noisy  hogs  demand  their  food  ; 
While  at  his  heels  run  many  a  chirping  brood,- 
Or  down  his  path  in  expectation  stand, 
With  equal  claims  upon  his  strewing  hand. 


18  SPRING. 

Thus  wastes  the  morn,  till  each  with  pleasure 

sees 
The  bustle  o'er,  and  pressed  the  new-made 

cheese. 

Unrivalled  stands  thy  country  cheese,  0 

Giles ! 

Whose  very  name  alone  engenders  smiles  ; 
Whose    fame    abroad    by  every  tongue  is 

spoke, 

The  well-known  butt  of  many  a  flinty  joke, 
That   pass   like    current    coin    the    nation 

through  ; 

And,  ah  !  experience  proves  the  satire  true. 
Provision's  grave,  thou  ever-craving  mart, 
Dependent,  huge  metropolis  I  where  Art 
Her  poring  thousands   stows  in   breathless 

rooms, 
Midst  poisonous   smokes,   and   steams,  and 

rattling  looms  : 

Where  Grandeur  revels  in  unbounded  stores  j 
Restraint,  a  slighted  stranger  at  their  doors  ! 
Thou,  like  a  whirlpool,  drain'st  the  countries 

round, 
Till  London  market,  London  price,  resound 


SPRING.  19 

Through  every  town,  round  every  passing 

load, 

And  dairy  produce  throngs  the  eastern  road  : 
Delicious  veal  and  butter,  every  hour, 
From  Essex  lowlands,  and  the  banks  of  Stour ; 
And  further  far,  where  numerous  herds  re 
pose, 

From  Orwell's  brink,  from  Waveny,  or  Ouse. 
Hence  Suifolk  dairy- wives  run  mad  for  cream, 
And  leave  their  milk  with  nothing  but  its 

name  ; 

Its  name  derision  and  reproach  pursue, 
And  strangers  tell  of  "  three  times  skimmed 

sky-blue." 

To  cheese  converted,  what  can  be  its  boast  1 
What,  but  the  common  virtues  of  a  post ! 
If  drought  o'ertake  it  faster  than  the  knife, 
Most  fair  it  bids  for  stubborn  length  of  life, 
And,  like  the  oaken  shelf  whereon  ?t  is  laid, 
Mocks  the  weak  efforts  of  the  bending  blade ; 
Or  in  the  hog-trough  rests  in  perfect  spite, 
Too  big  to  swallow,  and  too  hard  to  bite. 
Inglorious  victory  !     Ye  Cheshire  meads, 
Or    Severn's    flowery   dales,   where    plenty 
treads, 


20  SPRING. 

Was  your  rich  milk  to  suffer  wrongs   like 

these, 
Farewell    your  pride !    farewell,  renowned 

cheese ! 

The  skimmer  dread,  whose  ravages  alone 
Thus  turn  the  meads'  sweet  nectar  into  stone. 

Neglected  now  the  early  daisy  lies ; 
Nor  thou,  pale  primrose,  bloom'st  the  only 

prize : 

Advancing  Spring  profusely  spreads  abroad 
Flowers  of  all  hues,  with  sweetest  fragrance 

stored  ; 

Where'er  she  treads  Love  gladdens  every  plain, 
Delight  on  tiptoe  bears  her  lucid  train  ; 
Sweet  Hope  with  conscious  brow  before  her 

flies, 

Anticipating  wealth  from  Summer  skies  ; 
All  nature  feels  her  renovating  sway ; 
The  sheep-fed  pasture,  and  the  meadow  gay  ; 
And  trees  and  shrubs,  no  longer  budding  seen, 
Display  the  new-grown   branch   of  lighter 

green ; 

On  airy  downs  the  idling  shepherd  lies, 
And  sees  to-morrow  in  the  marbled  skies. 


SPRING.  21 

Here  then,  my  soul,  thy  darling  theme  pursue, 
For  every  day  was  Giles  a  shepherd  too. 

Small  was  his  charge  :  no  wilds  had  they 

to  roam  ; 
But  bright  enclosures  circling  round  their 

home. 
No    yellow-blossomed    furze    nor  stubborn 

thorn, 
The  heath's  rough  produce,  had  their  fleeces 

torn ; 

Yet  ever  roving,  ever  seeking  thee, 
Enchanting  spirit,  dear  Variety  ! 
O  happy  tenants,  prisoners  of  a  day ! 
Released  to  ease,  to  pleasure,  and  to  play ; 
Indulged   through   every  field   by  turns  to 

range, 

And  taste  them  all  in  one  continual  change. 
For  though  luxuriant  their  grassy  food, 
Sheep  long  confined  but  loathe  the  present 

good  : 

Bleating  around  the  homeward  gate  they  meet, 
And  starve,  and  pine,  with  plenty  at  their 

feet. 
Loosed  from  the  winding  lane,  a  joyful  throng, 


22  SPRING. 

See,  o'er  yon  pasture,  how  they  pour  along  ! 
Giles  round  their  boundaries  takes  his  usual 

stroll ; 

Sees  every  pass  secured,  and  fences  whole  ; 
High  fences,  proud  to  charm  the  gazing  eye, 
Where  many  a  nestling  first  essays  to  fly  ; 
Where  blows  the  woodbine,  faintly  streaked 

with  red, 

And  rests  on  every  bough  its  tender  head ; 
Round  the  young  ash  its  twining  branches 

meet, 
Or  crown  the  hawthorn  with  its  odor  sweet. 

Say,  ye  that  know,  ye  who  have  felt  and 

seen, 
Spring's  morning  smiles,  and  soul-enlivening 

green, 

Say,  did  you  give  the  thrilling  transport  way  ? 
Did  your  eye  brighten  when  young  lambs  at 

play 

Leaped  o'er  your  path  with  animated  pride, 
Or  gazed  in  merry  clusters  by  your  side  1 
Ye  who  can  smile,  to  wisdom  no  disgrace, 
At  the  arch  meaning  of  a  kitten's  face  : 
If  spotless  innocence,  and  infant  mirth, 


SPRING.  23 

Excites  to  praise,  or  gives  reflection  birth  ; 
In  shades  like  these  pursue  your  favorite  joy, 
Midst  Nature's  revels,  sports  that  never  cloy. 

A  few  begin  a  short  but  vigorous  race, 
And  Indolence,  abashed,  soon  flies  the  place  ; 
Thus  challenged  forth,  see  thither  one  by  one, 
From  every  side  assembling  playmates  run  ; 
A  thousand  wily  antics  mark  their  stay, 
A  starting  crowd,  impatient  of  delay. 
Like  the  fond  dove  from  fearful  prison  freed, 
Each  seems  to  say,  "  Come,  let  us   try  our 

speed  "  ; 

Away  they  scour,  impetuous,  ardent,  strong, 
The  green  turf  trembling   as   they   bound 

along  ; 

Adown  the  slope,  then  up  the  hillock  climb, 
Where  every  molehill  is  a  bed  of  thyme  ; 
There  panting  stop  ;  yet  scarcely  can  refrain  ; 
A  bird,  a  leaf  will  set  them  off  again  ; 
Or,  if  a  gale  with  strength  unusual  blow, 
Scattering  the  wild-brier  roses  into  snow, 
Their  little  limbs  increasing  efforts  try, 
Like  the  torn  flower  the  fair  assemblage  fly. 
Ah,  fallen  rose  !  sad  emblem  of  their  doom  \ 


24  SPRING. 

Frail  as  thyself,  they  perish  as  they  bloom  ! 
Though  unoffending  Innocence  may  plead, 
Though  frantic  ewes  may  mourn  the  savage 

deed, 

Their  shepherd  comes,  a  messenger  of  blood, 
And  drives  them  bleating  from  their  sports 

and  food. 

Care  loads  his  brow,  and  pity  wrings  his  heart 
For  lo,  the  murdering  butcher,  with  his  cart. 
Demands  the  firstlings  of  his  flock  to  die, 
And  makes  a  sport  of  life  and  liberty ! 
His  gay  companions  Giles  beholds  no  more  ; 
Closed  are  their  eyes,  their  fleeces  drenched 

in  gore  ; 

Nor  can  compassion,  with  her  softest  notes, 
Withhold   the   knife   that  plunges   through 

their  throats. 

Down,  indignation  !  hence,  ideas  foul  ! 
Away  the  shocking  image  from  my  soul  ! 
Let  kindlier  visitants  attend  my  way, 
Beneath  the  approaching  Summer's  fervid  ray; 
Nor  thankless  glooms  obtrude,  nor  cares  an 
noy, 
Whilst  the  sweet  theme  is  universal  .ioy. 


SUMMER. 


TURNIP-SOWING.  WHEAT  RIPENING.  SPARROWS.  INSECTS. 
THE  SKYLARK.  REAPING,  ETC.  HARVEST  FIELD,  DAIRY 
MAID,  ETC.  LABORS  OF  THE  BARN.  THE  GANDER.  NIGHT. 
A  THUNDER-STORM.  HARVEST-HOME.  REFLECTIONS,  ETC. 


HE   farmer's   life   displays   in   every 

part 

A  moral  lesson,  to  the  sensual  heart, 
Though  in  the  lap  of  Plenty,  thoughtful  still, 
He  looks  beyond  the  present  good  or  ill  ; 
Nor  estimates  alone  one  blessing's  worth 
From  changeful  seasons,  or  capricious  earth, 
But  views  the  future  with  the  present  hours, 
And  looks  for  failures  as  he  looks  for  showers ; 
For  casual  as  for  certain  want  prepares, 
And  round  his  j^ard  the  reeking  haystack 

rears ; 


£S  SUMMER. 

Ox*  clover,  blossomed  lovely  to  the  sight, 
His  team's  rich  store  through  many  a  wintry 

night. 
What  though  abundance  round  his  dwelling 

spreads, 

Though,  ever  moist,  his  self-improving  meads 
Supply  his  dairy  with  a  copious  flood, 
And  seem  to  promise  unexhausted  food  ; 
That   promise   fails,  when    buried   deep   in 

snow, 

And  vegetative  juices  cease  to  flow. 
And  this  his  plough  turns  up  with  destined 

lands, 

Whence  stormy  Winter  draws  its  full   de 
mands  ; 

For  this,  the  seed  minutely  small  he  sows, 
Whence,  sound  and  sweet,  the  hardy  turnip 

grows. 

But  how  unlike  to  April's  closing  days  ! 
High  climbs  the  sun,  and  darts  his  powerful 

rays  : 
Whitens  the  fresh-drawn  mould,  and  pierces 

through 
The  cumbrous  clods  that  tumble  round  the 

plough. 


SUMMER.  29 

• 

O'er  heaven's  bright  azure  hence  with  joyful 

eyes 

The  farmer  sees  dark  clouds  assembling  rise  : 
Borne  o'er  his  fields  a  heavy  torrent  falls. 
And  strikes  the  earth  in  hasty  driving  squalls. 
"  Right  welcome  down,  ye  precious  drops,"  he 

cries  ; 

But  soon,  too  soon,  the  partial  blessing  flies. 
"  Boy,  bring  the  harrows,  try  how  deep  the 

rain 
Has  forced  its  way."     He  comes,  but  comes 

in  vain  ; 

Dry  dust  beneath  the  bubbling  surface  lurks, 
And  mocks  the  pains  the  more,  the  more  he 

works  : 

Still,  midst  huge  clods,  he  plunges  on  forlorn, 
That  laugh  his  harrows  and  the  shower  to 

scorn. 

E'en  thus  the  living  clod,  the  stubborn  fool, 
Resists  the  stormy  lectures  of  the  school, 
Till  tried  with  gentler  means,  the  dunce  to 

please, 

His  head  imbibes  right  reason  by  degrees  ; 
As  when  from   eve   till  morning's  wakeful 

hour, 


30  SUMMER. 

Light  constant  rain  evinces  secret  power, 
And  ere  the  day  resumes  its  wonted  smiles, 
Presents  a  cheerful,  easy  task  for  Giles. 
Down  with  a  touch  the  mellowed  soil  is  laid, 
And   yon  tall  crop  next  claims  his  timely 

aid ; 

Thither  well  pleased  he  hies,  assured  to  find 
Wild,  trackless   haunts,  and  objects   to   his 

mind. 

Shot  up  from  broad  rank  blades  that  droop 

below, 

The  nodding  wheat-ear  forms  a  graceful  bow, 
With   milky  kernels  starting   full,  weighed 

down, 
Ere  yet  the  sun  -hath  tinged  its  head  with 

brown  ; 

There  thousands  in  a  flock,  forever  gay, 
Loud  chirping  sparrows  welcome  on  the  day, 
And  from  the  mazes  of  the  leafy  thorn 
Drop  one  by  one  upon  the  bending  corn. 
Giles  with  a  pole  assails  their  close  retreats, 
And    round   the   grass-grown   dewy   border 

beats  ; 
On  either  side  completely  overspread, 


SUMMER.  31 

Here  branches  bend,  their  corn  o'ertops  his 

head. 
Green  covert,  hail  !  for  through  the  varying 

year 

No  hours  so  sweet,  no  scene  to  him  so  dear. 
Here  "Wisdom's  placid  eye  delighted  sees 
His  frequent  intervals  of  lonely  ease, 
And  with  one  ray  his  infant  soul  inspires, 
Just  kindling  there  her  never-dying  fires, 
Whence  solitude  derives  peculiar  charms, 
And    heaven-directed    thought    his    bosom 

warms. 

Just  where  the  parting  bough's  light  shad 
ows  play, 

Scarce  in  the  shade,  nor  in  the  scorching  day, 
Stretched  on  the  turf  he  lies,  a  peopled  bed, 
Where   swarming   insects  creep  around   his 

head. 
The   small   dust-colored  beetle  climbs  with 

pain, 
O'er   the   smooth   plantain-leaf,   a    spacious 

plain  ! 
Thence  higher  still,  by  countless  steps  con- 

veyel, 
He  gains  the  summit  of  a  shivering  blade, 


32  SUMMER. 

And  flirts  his  filmy  wings,  and  looks  around, 
Exulting  in  his  distance  from  the  ground. 
The  tender  speckled  moth  here  dancing  seer,. 
The  vaunting  grasshopper  of  glossy  green. 
And  all  prolific  Summer's  sporting  train, 
Their  little  lives  by  various  powers  sustain. 
But  what  can  unassisted  vision  do  ? 
What  but  recoil  where  most  it  would  pursue  ; 
His  patient  gaze  but  finish  with  a  sigh, 
When  Music  waking  speaks  the  skylark  nigh  ! 
Just  starting  from  the  corn,  he  cheerly  sings, 
And  trusts  with  conscious  pride  his  downy 

wings  ; 

Still  louder  breathes,  and  in  the  face  of  day 
Mounts  up,  and  calls  on  Giles  to  mark  his 

way. 

Close  to  his  eyes  his  hat  he  instant  bends, 
And  forms  a  friendly  telescope  that  lends 
Just  aid  enough  to  dull  the  glaring  light, 
And  place  the  wandering  bird  before  his  sight, 
That  oft  beneath  a  light  cloud  sweeps  along, 
Lost  for  a  while,  yet  pours  the  varied  song  : 
The  eye  still  follows,  and  the  cloud  moves  by. 
Again  he  stretches,  up  the  clear  blue  sky  ; 
His  form,  his  motion,  undistinguished  quite, 


SUMMER.  33 

Save  when  he  wheels  direct  from  shade  to 

light  : 

E'en  then  the  songster  a  mere  speck  became, 
Gliding  like  fancy's  bubbles  in  a  dream, 
The  gazer  sees  ;  but,  yielding  to  repose, 
Unwittingly  his  jaded  eyelids  close. 
Delicious  sleep !  from  sleep  who  could  for 
bear, 
With  no  more  guilt  than  Giles,  and  no  more 

care  1 
Peace  o'er  his  slumbers  waves  her  guardian 

wing, 
Nor  conscience   once  disturbs   him  with   a 

sting ; 

He  wakes  refreshed  from  every  trivial  pain, 
And  takes  his  pole,  and  brushes  round  again. 

Its  dark-green  hue,  its  sicklier  tints,  all  fail 
And  ripening  harvest  rustles  in  the  gale. 
A  glorious  sight,  if  glory  dwells  below, 
Where  Heaven's  munificence  makes  all  the 

show 

O'er  every  field  and  golden  prospect  found, 
That  glads  the  ploughman's  Sunday  morn 
ing's  round, 


34  SUMMER. 

When  on  some  eminence  he  takes  his  stand, 
To  judge  the  smiling  produce  of  the  land. 

Here  Vanity  slinks  back,  her  head  to  hide  : 
What  is  there  here  to  flatter  human  pride  ? 
The  towering  fabric,  or  the  dome's  loud  roar, 
And  steadfast  columns,  may  astonish  more, 
Where  the  charmed  gazer  long  delighted  stays, 
Yet  traced  but  to  the  architect  the  praise  ; 
Whilst  here,  the  veriest  clown  that  treads  the 

sod, 

Without  one  scruple  gives  the  praise  to  God  ; 
And  twofold  joys  possess  his  raptured  mind, 
From  gratitude  and  admiration  joined. 

Here,  midst  the  boldest  triumphs  of  her 
worth, 

Nature  herself  invites  the  reapers  forth  ; 

Dares  the  keen  sickle  from  its  twelvemonth's 
rest, 

And  gives  that  ardor  which  in  every  breast, 

From  infancy  to  age,  alike  appears, 

When  the  first  sheaf  its  plumy  top  uprears. 

No  rake  takes  here  what  Heaven  to  all  be 
stows  — 

Children  of  want,  for  you  the  bounty  flows  ! 


SUMMER,.  35 

And  every  cottage  from  the  plenteous  store 
Receives  a  burden  nightly  at  his  door. 

Hark !   where   the   sweeping   scythe   now 

rips  along, 

Each  sturdy  mower,  emulous  and  strong, 
"Whose  writhing  form  meridian  heat  defies, 
Bends  o'er  his  work,  and  every  sinew  tries  ; 
Prostrates  the  waving  treasure  at  his  feet, 
But  spares  the  rising  clover,  short  and  sweet. 
Come,  Health !  come,  Jollity  !   light-footed, 

come  ; 
Here  hold  your  revels,  and  make  this  your 

home. 

Each  heart  awaits  and  hails  you  as  its  own  ; 
Each  moistened  brow  that  scorns  to  wear  a 

frown  ; 
The  unpeopled  dwelling  mourns  its  tenant 

strayed  ; 

E'en  the  domestic  laughing  dairy-maid 
Hies  to  the  field,  the  general  toil  to  share. 
Meanwhile  the  farmer  quits  his  elbow-chair, 
His  cool  brick  floor,  his  pitcher,  and  his  ease, 
And  braves  the  sultry  beams,  and  gladly  sees 
His  gates  thrown  open,  and  his  team  abroad, 


36  SUMMER. 

The  ready  group  attendant  on  his  word, 
To  turn  the  swath,  the  quivering  load  to  rear, 
Or  ply  the  busy  rake,  the  land  to  clear. 
Summer's  light  garb  itself  now  cumbrous 

grown, 
Each  his  thin  doublet  in  the  shade  throws 

down  ; 
Where  oft  the  mastiff  skulks  with  half-shut 

eye, 

And  rouses  at  the  stranger  passing  by ; 
Whilst  unrestrained  the  social  converse  flows, 
And  every  breast  Love's  powerful  impulse 

knows, 

And  rival  wits  with  more  than  rustic  grace 
Confess  the  presence  of  a  pretty  face. 

For,  lo  !  encircled  there,  the  lovely  maid, 
In  youth's  own  bloom  and  native  smiles  ar 
rayed  ; 

Her  hat  awry,  divested  of  her  gown, 
Her  creaking   stays   of    leather,   stout  and 

brown  ;  — 

Invidious  barrier !     Why  art  thou  so  high, 
When  the  slight  covering  of  her  neck  slips  by, 
There  half  revealing  to  the  eager  sight 


SUMMER.  37 

Her  full,  ripe  bosom,  exquisitely  white  ? 
In  many  a  local  tale  of  harmless  mirth, 
And  many  a  jest  of  momentary  birth, 
She  bears  a  part,  and  as  she  stops  to  speak, 
Strokes  back  the  ringlets  from  her  glowing 
cheek. 

Now  noon   gone   by,  and  four  declining 

hours, 

The  weary  limbs  relax  their  boasted  powers  ; 
Thirst  rages  strong,  the  fainting  spirits  fail, 
And  ask  the  sovereign  cordial,  home-brewed 

ale  : 

Beneath  some  sheltering  heap  of  yellow  corn 
Rests  the  hooped  keg,  and  friendly  cooling 

horn, 

That  mocks  alike  the  goblet's  brittle  frame, 
Its  costlier  portions,  and  its  nobler  name. 
To  Mary  first  the  brimming  draught  is  given, 
By  toil  made  welcome  as  the  dews  of  heaven, 
And  never  lip  that  pressed  its  homely  edge 
Kad  kinder  blessings  or  a  heartier  pledge. 

Of  wholesome  viand  here  a  banquet  smiles, 
Limon 
Giles, 


38  SUMMER. 

Who  joys  his  trivial  services  to  yield 
Amidst  the  fragrance  of  the  open  field  ; 
Oft  doomed  in  suffocating  heat  to  bear 
The  cobwebbed  barn's  impure  and  dusty  air  ; 
To  ride  in  murky  state  the  panting  steed, 
Destined  aloft  the  unloaded  grain  to  tread, 
Where,  in  his  path,  as  heaps  on  heaps  are 

thrown, 
He  rears  and  plunges  the  loose  mountain 

down : 
Laborious  task  !   with  what  delight,  when 

done, 
Both  horse  and  rider  greet  the  unclouded  sun ! 

Yet  by  the  unclouded  sun  are  hourly  bred 
The  bold  assailants  that  surround  thine  head, 
Poor,  patient  Ball !  and  with  insulting  wing 
Eoar  in  thine  ears,  and  dart  the  piercing  sting ; 
In  thy  behalf  the  crest- waved  boughs  avail 
More  than  thy  short-clipt  remnant  of  a  tail, 
A  moving  mockery,  a  useless  name, 
A  living  proof  of  cruelty  and  shame. 
Shame  to  the  man,  whatever  fame  he  bore, 
Who  took  from  thee  what  man  can  ne'er  re 
store, 


SUMMER.  39 

weapon  of  defence,  thy  chiefest  good, 
When  swarming  flies  contending  suck   thy 

blood. 

Nor  thine  alone  the  suffering,  thine  the  care, 
The  fretful  ewe  bemoans  an  equal  share  ; 
Tormented  into  sores,  her  head  she  hides, 
Or  angry  sweeps  them  from  her  new-shorn 

sides. 

Penned  in  the  yard,  e'en  now  at  closing  day 
Unruly  cows  with  marked  impatience  stay, 
And,  vainly  striving  to  escape  their  foes, 
The  pail  kick  down  ;  a  piteous  current  flows. 

Is't  not  enough  that  plagues  like  these 

molest  1 

Must  still  another  foe  annoy  their  rest  ? 
He  comes,  the  pest  and  terror  of  the  yard, 
His  full-fledged  progeny's  imperious  guard  ; 
The  gander  ;  —  spiteful,  insolent  and  bold, 
At  the  colt's  footlock  takes  his  daring  hold ; 
There,  serpent-like,  escapes  a  dreadful  blow  ; 
And  straight  attacks  a  poor  defenceless  cow : 
Each  booby  goose  the  unworthy  strife  enjoys, 
And  hails  his  prowess  with  redoubled  noise. 
Then  back  he  stalks,  of  self-importance  full, 


40  SUMMER. 

Seizes  the  shaggy  foretop  of  the  bull, 
Till,  whirled  aloft,  he  falls  :  a  timely  check, 
Enough  to  dislocate  his  worthless  neck  : 
For  lo  !  of  old  he  boasts  an  honored  wound ; 
Behold    that   broken   wing    that   trails   the 

ground ! 

Thus  fools  and  bravoes  kindred  pranks  pur 
sue  ; 

As  savage  quite,  and  oft  as  fatal  too. 
Happy  the  man  that  foils  an  envious  elf, 
Using  the  darts  of  spleen  to  serve  himself. 
As  when  by  turns  the  strolling  swine  engage 
The  utmost  efforts  of  the  bully's  rage, 
Whose  nibbling  warfare  on  the  grunter's  side 
Is  welcome  pleasure  to  his  bristly  hide ; 
Gently  he  stoops,  or,  stretched  at  ease  along, 
Enjoys  the  insults  of  the  gabbling  throng, 
That  march  exulting  round  his  fallen  head, 
As  human  victors  trample  on  their  dead. 

Still  Twilight,  welcome  !     Rest,  how  sweet 

art  thou  ! 
Now  eve  o'erhangs  the  western  cloud's  thick 

brow  : 
The  far-stretched  curtain  of  retiring  light, 


SUMMER.  41 

With  fiery  treasures   fraught ;  that   on  the 

sight 
Flash  from  its  bulging  sides,  where  darkness 

lowers, 

In  fancy's  eye,  a  chain  of  mouldering  towers  ; 
Or  craggy  coasts  just  rising  into  view, 
Midst  javelins  dire,  and  darts  of  streaming 

blue. 

Anon  tired  laborers  bless  their  sheltering 

home, 
When  midnight  and   the  frightful   tempest 

come. 

The  farmer  wakes,  and  sees,  with  silent  dread, 
The  angry  shafts  of  Heaven  gleam  round  his 

bed; 

The  bursting  cloud  reiterated  roars, 
Shakes  his  straw  roof,  and  jars  his  bolting 

doors : 
The  slow-winged  storm  along  the   troubled 

skies 
Spreads  its  dark  course  ;  the  wind  begins  to 

rise  ; 
And  full-leafed  elinSj  his  dwelling's  shade  by 

day, 


42  SUMMER. 

With  mimic  thunder  give  its  fury  way  : 
Sounds  in  his  chimney-top  a  doleful  peal 
Midst  pouring  rain,  or  gusts  of  rattling  hail  : 
With  tenfold  danger  low  the  tempest  bends, 
And  quick  and  strong  the  sulphurous  flame 

descends  : 

The  frightened  mastiff  from  his  kennel  flies, 
And  cringes  at  the  door  with  piteous  cries. 

Where  now 's  the  trifler  1  where  the  child 

of  pride  ? 
These  are  the  moments  when  the  heart  is 

tried ! 
Nor  lives  the  man,  with  conscience  e'er  so 

clear, 

But  feels  a  solemn,  reverential  fear  ; 
Feels  too  a  joy  relieve  his  aching  breast, 
When  the  spent  storm  hath  howled  itself  to 

rest, 
Still,    welcome    beats    the    long-continued 

shower, 
And,  sleep   protracted,  comes  with  double 

power ; 

Calm  dreams  of  bliss  bring  on  the  morning  sun, 
For  every  barn  is  filled,  and  harvest  done ! 


SUMMER.  43 

N"ow,  ere  sweet  summer  bids  its  long  adieu, 
A«d  winds  blow  keen  where  late  the  blossom 

grew, 

The  bustling  day  and  jovial  night  must  come, 
The  long-accustomed  feast  of  harvest-home. 
No  blood-stained  victory,  in  story  bright, 
<Jan  give  the  philosophic  mind  delight  ; 
N"o  triumph  please,  while  rage  and  death  de 
stroy  : 

Reflection  sickens  at  the  monstrous  joy. 
A.nd  where  the  joy,  if  rightly  understood, 
Like  cheerful  praise  for  universal  good  ? 
The  soul  nor  check  nor   doubtful  anguish 

knows, 
But  free  and  pure  the  grateful  current  flows. 

Behold  the  sound  oak  table's  massy  frame 
Bestride  the  kitchen  floor  !  the  careful  dame 
And  generous  host  invite  their  friends  around, 
For  all  that  cleared  the  crop,  or  tilled  the 

ground, 
Are  guests  by  right   of  custom  ;  —  old  and 

young  ; 
And  many  a  neighboring  yeoman  join  the 

throng, 


44  SUMMER. 

With  artisans  that  lent  their  dexterous  aid, 
When  o'er  each  field  the  flaming  sunbeams 
played. 

Yet  Plenty  reigns,  and  from  her  boundless 

hoard, 

Though  not  one  jelly  trembles  on  the  board, 
Supplies   the  feast  with  all  that  sense   can 

crave  ; 

With  all  that  made  our  great  forefathers  brave, 
Ere  the  cloyed  palate  countless  flavors  tried, 
And  cooks  had  Nature's  judgment  set  aside. 
With  thanks  to  Heaven,  and  tales  of  rustic 

lore, 

The  mansion  echoes  when  the  banquet 's  o'er  ; 
A  wider  circle  spreads  and  smiles  abound, 
As   quick   the   frothing   horn  performs   its 

round  ; 

Care's  mortal  foe  ;  that  sprightly  joys  imparts 
To  cheer  the  frame  and  elevate  their  hearts. 
Here,  fresh  and  brown,  the  hazel's  produce  lies 
In  tempting  heaps,  and  peals  of  laughter  rise  ; 
And  crackling  music,  with  the  frequent  song, 
Unheeded  bear  the  midnight  hour  along. 
Here   once   a  year  distinction   lowers   its 

crest  : 


SUMMER.  45 

The  master,  servant,  and  the  merry  guest 
Are  equal  all  ;  and  round  the  happy  ring 
The  reaper's  eyes  exulting  glances  fling, 
And,  warmed  with  gratitude,  he  quits   his 

place, 

With  sunburnt  hands  and  ale-enlivened  face, 
Refills  the  jug  his  honored  host  to  tend, 
To  serve  at  once  the  master  and  the  friend  ; 
Proud  thus  to  meet  his  smiles,  to  share  his 

tale, 
His  nuts,  his  conversation,  and  his  ale. 

Such  were  the  days.  —  of  days  long  past  I 

sing, 
When  pride  gave  place  to  mirth  without  a 

sting  ; 

Ere  tyrant  customs  strength  sufficient  bore 
To  violate  the  feelings  of  the  poor  ; 
To  leave  them  distanced  in  the  madd'ning  race, 
Where'er  refinement  shows  its  hated  face  : 
Nor    causeless   hated  ;  —  't  is  the  peasant's 

curse, 
That  hourly  makes    his   wretched    station 

worse  ; 
Destroys  life's  intercourse  ;  the  social  plan 


46  SUMMER. 

That  rank  to  rank  cements,  as  man  to  man  : 
Wealth   flows   around   him,  Fashion  lordly 

reigns  : 
Yet  poverty  is  his,  and  mental  pains. 

Methinks  I  hear  the  mourner  thus  impart 
The  stifled  murmurs  of  his  wounded  heart : 
"  Whence  comes  this  change,  ungracious,  irk 
some,  cold  1 
Whence  the  new  grandeur  that  mine   eyes 

behold  ? 

The  widening  distance  which  I  daily  see, 
Has  Wealth  done  this  ?  —  then  Wealth 's  a 

foe  to  me  : 

Foe  to  our  rights  ;  that  leaves  a  powerful  few 
The  paths  of  emulation  to  pursue  :  — 
For  emulation  stoops  to  us  no  more  : 
The  hope  of  humble  industry  is  o'er  ; 
The  blameless  hope,  the  cheering  sweet  pres 
age 

Of  future  comforts  for  declining  age. 
Can  my  sons  share  from  this  paternal  hand 
The  profits  wTith  the  labors  of  the  land  ? 
No,  though  indulgent   Heaven  its  blessing 
deigns, 


SUMMER.  47 


Where  's  the  small  farm  to  suit  my  scanty 

means  ? 

Content,  the  poet  sings,  with  us  resides  ; 
In  lonely  cots  like  mine,  the  damsel  hides  ; 
And  will  he  then  in  raptured  visions  tell 
That  sweet  con  tent  with  want  can  never  dwell  I 
A  barley  loaf,  't  is  true,  my  table  crowns, 
That,  fast  diminishing  in  lusty  rounds, 
Stops  Nature's  cravings ;  yet  her  sighs  willflow 
From  knowing  this,  —  that  once  it  was  not  so. 
Our  annual   feast,  when  Earth   her  plenty 

yields, 
When  crowned  with  boughs  the  last  load  quits 

the  fields, 

The  aspect  still  of  ancient  joy  puts  on  ; 
The  aspect  only,  with  the  substance  gone  : 
The  selfsame  horn  is  still  at  our  command, 
But  serves  none  now  but  the  plebeian  hand  ; 
For  home-brewed  ale,  neglected  and  debased, 
Is  quite  discarded  from  the  realms  of  taste. 
Where  unaffected  freedom  charmed  the  soul, 
The  separate  table,  and  the  costly  bowl, 
Cool   as  the  blast  that  checks  the  budding 

Spring, 
A  mockery  of  gladness  round  them  fling. 


48  SUMMER. 

For  oft  the  farmer,  ere  his  heart  approves, 
Yields  up  the  custom  which  he  dearly  loves  ; 
Refinement  forces  on  him  like  a  tide  ; 
Bold  innovations  down  its  current  ride, 
That  bear  no  peace  beneath  their  showy  dress, 
Nor  add  one  title  to  his  happiness. 
His  guests  selected,  rank's  punctilios  known  ; 
What  trouble  waits  upon  a  casual  frown  ! 
Restraint's  foul  manacles  his  pleasures  maim  ; 
Selected  guests  selected  phrases  claim  : 
Nor  reigns  that  joy,  when  hand  in  hand  they 

join, 

That  good  old  master  felt  in  shaking  mine. 
Heaven  bless  his  memory  !  bless  his  honored 

name ! 
(The   poor  will   speak   his    lasting  worthy 

fame  :) 
To  souls  fair-purposed  strength  and  guidance 

give; 

In  pity  to  us  still  let  goodness  live  : 
Let  labor  have  its  due  !  my  cot  shall  be 
From  chilling  want  and  guilty  murmurs  frea 
Let  labor  have  its  due  ;  then  peace  is  mine, 
And  never,  never  shall  my  heart  repine." 


AUTUMN. 


ACORNS.  HOGS  IN  THE  WOOD.  WHEAT-SOWING.  THE  CHURCH. 
VILLAGE  GIRLS.  THE  MAD  GIRL.  THE  BIRD-BOY'S  HUT.  DIS 
APPOINTMENT,  REFLECTIONS,  ETC.  EUSTON-HALL.  FOX 
HUNTING.  OLD  TROUNCER.  LONG  NIGHTS.  A  WELCOME  TO 
WINTER. 


GAIN,  the  year's  decline,  midst  storms 

and  floods, 
The   thundering  chase,   the  yellow 

fading  woods, 

Invite  my  song  ;  that  fain  would  boldly  tell 
Of  upland  coverts  and  the  echoing  dell. 
By  turns  resounding  loud,  at  eve  and  morn, 
The  swineherd's  halloo,  or  the  huntsman's 
horn. 

No  more  the  fields  with  scattered  grain 
supply 


52  AUTUMN. 

The  restless  wandering  tenants  of  the  sty  ; 
From  oak  to  oak  they  run  with  eager  haste, 
And  wrangling  share  the  first  delicious  taste 
Of  fallen  acorns  ;  yet  but  thinly  found 
Till  the  strong  gale  has  shook  them  to  the 

ground. 

It  comes  ;  and  roaring  woods  obedient  wave : 
Their  home  well  pleased  the  joint  adventur 
ers  leave: 
The  trudging  sow  leads  forth  her  numerous 

young, 
Playful,  and  white,   and   clean,   the   briers 

among, 
Till  briers  and  thorns  increasing  fence  them 

round, 
Where  last  year's  smouldering  leaves  bestrew 

the  ground, 
And  o'er  their  heads,  loud  lashed  by  furious 

squalls, 
Bright  from  their  cups  the  rattling  treasure 

falls  ; 
Hot,  thirsty  food  ;  whence  doubly  sweet  and 

cool 
The  welcome  margin  of  some  rush-grown 

pool, 


AUTUMN.  53 

The  wild  duck's  lonely  haunt,  whose  jealous 

eye 

Guards  every  point ;  who  sits,  prepared  to  fly, 
On  the  calm  bosom  of  her  little  lake, 
Too  closely   screened   for  ruffian   winds  to 

shake  ; 

And  as  the  bold  intruders  press  around, 
At  once  she  starts,  and  rises  with  a  bound  : 
With  bristles  raised,  the  sudden  noise  they 

hear, 

And  ludicrously  wild,  and  winged  with  fear, 
The  herd  decamp  with  more  than  swinish 

speed, 
And  snorting  dash  through  sedge,  and  rush. 

and  reed  : 
Through  tangling  thickets  headlong  on  they 

go, 

Then  stop  and  listen  for  their  fancied  foe  ; 
The  hindmost  still  the  growing  panic  spreads, 
Repeated  fright  the  first  alarm  succeeds, 
Till  Folly's  wages,  wounds  and  thorns,  they 

reap  : 

Yet  glorying  in  their  fortunate  escape, 
Their    groundless   terrors   by   degrees   soon 

cease. 


54  AUTUMN. 

And  Night's  dark  reign  restores  their  wonted 

peace. 
For  now  the  gale  subsides,  and  from  each 

bough 
The  roosting  pheasant's  short  but  frequent 

crow 

Invites  to  rest ;  and,  huddling  side  by  side, 
The  herd  in  closest  ambush  seek  to  hide  ; 
Seek  some  warm  slope  with  shagged  moss 

o'erspread, 
Dried  leaves  their  copious  covering  and  their 

bed: 
In  vain  may  Giles,  through  gathering  glooms 

that  fall, 

And  solemn  silence,  urge  his  piercing  call : 
Whole    days   and   nights  they  tarry  midst 

their  store, 
Nor  quit  the  woods  till  oaks  can  yield  no  more. 

Beyond  bleak  Winter's  rage,  beyond  the 

Spring 
That  rolling  Earth's  unvarying  course  will 

bring, 
Who  tills  the  ground  looks  on  with  mental 


AUTUMN.  55 

And  sees  next  Summer's  sheaves  and  cloud 
less  sky  ; 

And  even  now,  whilst  Nature's  beauty  dies, 
Deposits  seed,  and  bids  new  harvests  rise  ; 
Seed  well  prepared,  and  warmed  with  glow 
ing  lime, 
'Gainst  earth-bred  grubs,  and  cold,  and  lapse 

of  time  : 

For  searching  frosts  and  various  ills  invade, 
Whilst  wintry  months  depress  the  springing 

blade. 
The  plough  moves  heavily,  and  strong  the 

soil, 

And  clogging  harrows  with  augmented  toil 
Dive  deep  :   and  clinging,  mixes   with   the 

mould 

A  fattening  treasure  from  the  nightly  fold, 
And  all  the  cow-yard's  highly  valued  store 
That  late  bestrewed  the  blackened  surface 

o'er. 

No  idling  hours  are  here,  when  Fancy  trims 
Her  dancing  taper  over  outstretched  limbs, 
And,  in  her  thousand  thousand  colors  drest, 
Plays  round  the  grassy  couch  of  noontide  rest: 
Here  Giles  for  hours  of  indolence  atones 


56  AUTUMN. 

With  strong  exertion  and  with  weary  bones, 
And  knows  no  leisure  ;  till  the  distant  chime 
Of  Sabbath  bells  he  hears  at  sermon-time, 
That  down  the  brook  sound  sweetly  in  the 

gale, 
Or  strike  the  rising  hill,  or  skim  the  dale. 

Nor  his  alone  the  sweets  of  ease  to  taste  : 
Kind  rest  extends  to  all :  —  save  one  poor 

beast, 
That,  true  to  time  and  pace,  is  doomed  to 

plod, 

To  bring  the  pastor  to  the  house  of  God  : 
Mean  structure  :  where  no  bones  of  heroes 

lie! 

The  rude  inelegance  of  poverty 
Keigns  here  alone  :    else  why  that  roof  of 

straw  1 
Those   narrow  windows  with  the  frequent 

flaw? 
O'er  whose  low  cells  the  dock  and  mallow 

spread, 

And  rampant  nettles  lift  the  spiry  head, 
Whilst  from  the  hollows  of  the  tower  on  high 
The  gray-capped  daws  in  saucy  legions  fly. 


AUTUMN.  57 

Round  these  lone  walls  assembling  neigh 
bors  meet, 

And  tread  departed  friends  beneath  their  feet; 

And  new-briered  graves,  that  prompt  the  se 
cret  sigh, 

Show  each  the  spot  where  he  himself  must  lie. 

Midst  timely  greetings  village  ne~ws  goes 

•    round, 
Of  crops  late  shorn,  or  crops  that  deck  the 

ground ; 

Experienced  ploughmen  in  the  circle  join  ; 
While  sturdy  boys,  in  feats  of  strength  to 

shine, 

With  pride  elate,  their  young  associates  brave 
To  jump  from  hollow-sounding    grave    to 

grave  ; 

Then  close  consulting,  each  his  talent  lends 
To  plan  fresh  sports  when  tedious  service  ends. 

Hither  at  times,  with  cheerfulness  of  soul, 
Sweet  village  maids  from  neighboring  hamlets 

stroll, 
That,  like  the  light-heeled   does  o'er  lawns 

that  rove, 


58  AUTUMN. 

Look  shyly  curious  ;  ripening  into  love  ; 
For  love 's  their  errand  :  hence  the  tints  that 

glow 

On  either  cheek,  a  heightened  lustre  know  : 
When,  conscious  of  their  charms,  e'en  Ago 

looks  sly, 
And  rapture  beams  from  Youth's  observant 

eye. 

The  pride  of  such  a  party,  Nature's  pride, 
Was  lovely  Poll ;  who  innocently  tried, 
With  hat  of  airy  shape  and  ribbons  gay, 
Love  to  inspire,  and  stand  in  Hymen's  way  : 
But,  ere   her  twentieth  summer   could   ex 
pand, 

Or  youth  was  rendered  happy  with  her  hand, 
Her  mind's  serenity,  her  peace  was  gone, 
Her  eye  grew  languid  and  she  wept  alone  : 
Yet  causeless  seemed  her  grief  ;  for  quick  re 
strained, 

Mirth  followed  loud  ;  or  indignation  reigned  : 
Whims  wild  and  simple  led  her  from  her 

home, 

The  heath,  the  common,  or  the  fields  to  roam: 
Terror  and  joy  alternate  ruled  her  hours  ; 


AUTUMN.  59 

Now  blithe  she  sung,  and  gathered  useless 

flowers ; 

Now  plucked  a  tender  twig  from  every  bough, 
To  whip  the  hovering  demons  from  her  brow. 
Ill-fated  maid* !  thy  guiding  spark  is  fled, 
And  lasting  wretchedness  awaits  thy  bed  — 
Thy  bed  of  straw!  for  mark,  where  even  now 
O'er  their  lost  child  afflicted  parents  bow ; 
Their  woe  she  knows  not,  but  perversely  coy, 
Inverted  customs  yield  her  sullen  joy! 
Her  midnight  meals  in  secrecy  she  takes, 
Low  muttering  to  the  moon,  that  rising  breaks 
Through  night's  dark  gloom  :  —  0,  how  much 

more  forlorn 
Her    night,    that    knows    of  no    returning 

morn !  — 

Slow  from  the  threshold,  once  her  infant  seat, 
O'er  the  cold  earth  she  crawls  to  her  retreat ; 
Quitting  the  cot's  warm  walls,  unhoused  to 

lie, 

Or  share  the  swine's  impure  and  narrow  sty ; 
The  damp  night-air  her  shivering  limbs 

assails  : 
In  dreams  she  moans,  and  fancied  wronga 

bewails. 


60  AUTUMN. 

When  morning  wakes,  none  earlier  roused 

than  she, 
When  pendent  drops  fall  glittering  from  the 

tree. 

But  naught  her  rayless  melancholy  cheers, 
Or  soothes  her  breast,  or  stops  her  streaming 

tears. 

Her  matted  locks  unornamented  flow ; 
Clasping  her  knees,  and  waving  to  and  fro ; — 
Her  head  bowed  down,  her  faded  cheek  to 

hide ;  — 

A  piteous  mourner  by  the  pathway  side. 
Some  tufted  molehill  through  the  livelong 

day 
She  calls  her  throne  :   there  weeps  her  life 

away  : 

And  oft  the  gayly  passing  stranger  stays 
His  well-timed  step,  and  takes  a  silent  gazes 
Till  sympathetic  drops  unbidden  start, 
And  pangs  quick  springing  muster  round  his 

heart ; 

And  soft  he  treads  with  other  gazers  round, 
And  fain  would  catch  her  sorrow's  plaintive 

sound. 
One  word  alone  is  all  that  strikes  the  ear, 


AUTUMN.  61 

One    short,    pathetic,    simple     word,— U0 

dear  ! " 

A  thousand  times  repeated  to  the  wind, 
That  wafts  the  sigh,  but  leaves  the  pang  be 
hind  ! 

Forever  of  the  proffered  parley  shy, 
She  hears  the  unwelcome  foot  advancing  nigh ; 
Nor  quite  unconscious  of  her  wretched  plight, 
Gives  one  sad  look  and  hurries  out  of  sight. 

"Fair  promised  sunbeams  of  terrestrial  bliss, 
Health's  gallant  hopes,  —  and  are  ye  sunk  to 

this  ? 
For  in  life's  road,  though  thorns  abundant 

grow, 

There  still  are  joys  poor  Poll  can  never  know  ; 
Joys  which  the  gay  companions  of  her  prime 
Sip  as  they  drift  along  the  stream  of  time  : 
At  eve  to  hear  beside  their  tranquil  home 
The  lifted  latch,  that  speaks  the  lover  come  : 
That  love  matured,  next  playful  on  the  knee 
To  press  the  velvet  lip  of  infancy ; 
To    stay  the    tottering    step,   the    features 

trace  ;  — 
Inestimable  sweets  of  social  peace  ! 


62  AUTUMN. 

0  Thou  who  bidd'st  the  vernal  juices  rise ! 
Thou,  on  whose  blasts  autumnal  foliage  flies ! 
Let  peace  ne'er  leave  me,  nor  my  heart  grow 

cold, 
Whilst  life  and  sanity  are  mine  to  hold. 

Shorn  of  their  flowers  that  shed  the  un- 

treasured  seed, 

The  withering  pasture,  and  the  fading  mead, 
Less    tempting   grown,  dimmish   more   and 

more, 
The  dairy's  pride  ;  sweet  Summer's  flowing 

store. 

New  cares  succeed,  and  gentle  duties  press, 
Where  the  fireside,  a  school  of  tenderness, 
Eevives  the  languid  chirp,  and  warms  the 

blood 

Of  cold-nipped  weaklings  of  the  latter  brood, 
That  from  the  shell  just  bursting  into  day, 
Through  yard  or  pond  pursue  their  venturous 

way. 

Far  weightier  cares  and  wider  scenes  ex 
pand  ; 
What  devastation  marks  the  new-sown  land  J 


AUTUMN.  63 

"  From  hungry  woodland's   foes  go,   Giles, 

and  guard 

The  rising  wheat,  insure  its  great  reward  : 
A  future  sustenance,  a  Summer's  pride, 
Demand  thy  vigilance  :  then  be  it  tried  : 
Exert  thy  voice,  and  wield  thy  shotless  gun  : 
Go,  tarry  there  from  morn  till  setting  sun." 

Keen  blows  the  blast,  or  ceaseless  rain 

descends  ; 

The  half- stripped  hedge  a  sorry  shelter  lends. 
O,  for  a  hovel,  e'er  so  small  or  low, 
Whose  roof,  repelling  winds  and  early  snow, 
Might  bring  home's   comforts  fresh  before 

his  eyes ! 
No  sooner  thought,  than  see  the  structure 

rise, 

In  some  sequestered  nook,  embanked  around, 
Sods  for  its  walls,  and   straw  in  burdens 

bound ! 

Dried  fuel  hoarded  is  his  richest  store, 
And  circling  smoke  obscures  his  little  door  : 
Whence   creeping  forth,   to   duty's   call   he 

yields, 
And  strolls  the  Crusoe  of  the  lonely  fields. 


64  AUTUMN. 

On  whitethorns  towering,  and  the  leafless  rose, 
A  frost-nipt  feast  in  bright  vermilion  glows  ; 
Where  clustering  sloes  in  glossy  order  rise, 
He  crops  the  loaded  branch  ;   a  cumbrous 

prize  : 
And  o'er  the  flame  the  spluttering  fruit  he 

rests, 
Placing    green    sods    to    seat    the    coming 

guests  ; 
His  guests  by  promise  ;   playmates   young 

and  gay  :  — 

But  ah !  fresh  pastimes  lure  their  steps  away ! 
He  sweeps  his  hearth,  and  homeward  looks 

in  vain, 

Till  feeling  disappointment's  cruel  pain, 
His  fairy  revels  are  exchanged  for  rage, 
His  banquet  marred,  grown  dull  his  hermit 
age. 

The  field  becomes  his  prison,  till  on  high 
Benighted  birds  to  shades  and  coverts  fly. 
Midst  air,  health,  daylight,  can  he  prisoner 

be? 

If  fields  are  prisons,  where  is  Liberty  1 
Here  still  she  dwells,  and  here  her  votaries 

stroll ; 


AUTUMN.  65 

But  disappointed  hope  untunes  the  soul : 
Restraints    unfelt   whilst  hours   of   rapture 

flow, 
When  troubles  press,  to  chains  and  barriers 

grow. 

Look  then  from  trivial  up  to  greater  woes  ; 
From  the  poor  bird-boy  with  his  roasted  sloes, 
To  where  the  dungeoned  mourner  heaves  the 

sigh, 
Where  not  one  cheering  sunbeam  meets  his 

eye. 

Though  ineffectual  pity  thine  may  be, 
No  wealth,  no  power,  to  set  the  captive  free  ; 
Though  only  to  thy  ravished  sight  is  given 
The  radiant  path  that  Howard  trod  to  heaven  ; 
Thy  slights  can  make  the  wretched  more  for 
lorn, 

And  deeper  drive  affliction's  barbed  thorn. 
Say  not,  "  I  '11  come  and  cheer  thy  gloomy 

cell 
With  news  of  dearest   friends  ;   how  good, 

how  well  : 

I  '11  be  a  joyful  herald  to  thine  heart "  ; 
Then  fail,  and  play  the  worthless  trifler's  part, 
To  sip  flat  pleasures  from  thy  glass's  brim, 


66  AUTUMN. 

And  waste  the  precious  hour  that 's  due  to 

him. 

In  mercy  spare  the  base,  unmanly  blow  : 
Where  can  he  turn,  to  whom  complain  of 

you  ? 
Back  to  past  joys  in  vain  his  thoughts  may 

stray, 

Trace  and  retrace  the  beaten,  worn  out  way, 
The  rankling  injury  will  pierce  his  breast, 
And  curses  on  thee  break  his  midnight  rest. 

Bereft  of  song,  and  ever-cheering  green, 
The  soft  endearments  of  the  Summer  scene, 
New  harmony  pervades  the  solemn  wood, 
Dear  to  the  soul,  and  healthful  to  the  blood  : 
For  bold  exertion  follows  on  the  sound 
Of  distant  sportsmen,  and  the  chiding  hound ; 
First  heard  from  kennel  bursting,  mad  with 


Where  smiling  Euston  boasts  her  good  Fitz- 


Lord  of  pure  alms,  and  gifts  that  wide  ex 

tend  ; 
The  farmer's   patron,  and  the   poor  man's 

friend  : 


AUTUMN.  67 

Whose  mansion  glitters  with  the  eastern  ray, 
Whose  elevated  temple  points  the  way, 
O'er  slopes  and  lawns,  the  park's  extensive 

pride, 

To  where  the  victims  of  the  chase  reside, 
Ingulfed  in  earth,  in  conscious  safety  warm, 
Till  lo  !  a  plot  portends  their  coming  harm. 

In  earliest  hours  of  dark  and  hooded  morn, 
Ere  yet  one  rosy  cloud  bespeaks  the  dawn, 
Whilst  far  abroad  the  fox  pursues  his  prey, 
He  's  doomed  to  risk  the  perils  of  the  day, 
From  his  stronghold  blocked  out ;  perhaps  to 

bleed, 

Or  owe  his  life  to  fortune  or  to  speed. 
For  now  the  pack,  impatient  rushing  on, 
Eange  through  the  darkest  coverts  one  by  one ; 
Trace  every  spot  ;  whilst  down  each  noble 

glade 
That  guides   the   eye   beneath  a  changeful 

shade, 
The  loitering  sportsman  feels  the  instinctive 

flame, 
And  checks  his  steed  to  mark  the  springing 

game. 


68  AUTUMN. 

Midst  intersecting  cuts  and  winding  ways 
The  huntsman  cheers  his  dogs,  and  anxious 

strays 

Where  every  narrow  riding,  even  shorn, 
Gives  back  the  echo  of  his  mellow  horn  : 
Till  fresh  and  lightsome,  every  power  untried, 
The  starting  fugitive  leaps  by  his  side, 
His  lifted  finger  to  his  ear  he  plies, 
And  the  view-halloo  bids  a  chorus  rise 
Of  dogs  quick-mouthed,  and  shouts  that  min 
gle  loud 

As  bursting  thunder  rolls  from  cloud  to  cloud. 
With  ears  erect,  and  chest  of  vigorous  mould, 
O'er  ditch,  o'er  fence,  unconquerably  bold, 
The  shining  courser  lengthens  every  bound, 
And  his  strong  footlocks  suck  the  moistened 

ground, 

As  from  the  confines  of  the  wood  they  pour, 
And  joyous  villages  partake  the  roar. 
O'er  heath  far-stretched,  or  down,  or  valley 

low, 

The  stiff-limbed  peasant,  glorying  in  the  show, 
Pursues   in  vain  ;   where  youth  itself  soon 

tires, 
Spite  of  the  transports  that  the  chase  inspires ; 


AUTUMN.  69 

For  who  unmounted  long  can  charm  the  eye, 
Or  hear  the  music  of  the  leading  cry  ? 

Poor  faithful  Trouncer  !  thou  canst  lead  no 

more  ; 

All  thy  fatigues  and  all  thy  triumphs  o;er ! 
Triumphs   of  worth,  whose   long   excelling 

fame 

Was  still  to  follow  true  the  hunted  game  ! 
Beneath  enormous  oaks,  Britannia's  boast, 
In  thick,  impenetrable  coverts  lost, 
When   the  warm  pack  in   faltering   silence 

stood, 
Thine  was  the  note  that  roused  the  listening 

wood, 

Rekindling  every  joy  with  tenfold  force, 
Through  all  the  mazes  of  the  tainted  course. 
Still  foremost  thou  the  dashing  stream  to 

cross, 

And  tempt  along  the  animated  horse  ; 
Foremost  o'er  fen  or  level  mead  to  pass, 
And  sweep   the  showering  dew-drops  from 

the  grass  ; 

Then  bright  emerging  from  the  mist  below, 
To  climb  the  woodland  hill's  exulting  brow. 


70  AUTUMN. 

Pride  of  thy  race !  with  worth  far  less  than 

thine, 

Full  many  human  leaders  daily  shine  ! 
Less    faith,    less    constancy,  less    generous 

zeal ! — 

Then  no  disgrace  my  humble  verse  shall  feel, 
Where  not  one  lying  line  to  riches  bows, 
Or  poisoned  sentiments  from  rancor  flows  ; 
Nor  flowers  are  strewn  around  Ambition's  car: 
An  honest  dog 's  a  nobler  theme  by  far. 
Each  sportsman  heard  the  tidings  with  a  sigh, 
When  Death's  cold  touch  had  stopt  his  tune 
ful  cry  ; 
And  though   high  deeds,  and  fair  exalted 

praise, 

In  memory  lived,  and  flowed  in  rustic  lays, 
Short  was  the  strain  of  monumental  woe  : 
"  Foxes,  rejoice  !  here  buried  lies  your  foe" 
In  safety  housed,  throughout  Night's  length 
ening  reign, 
The   cock  sends  forth  a  loud  and  piercing 

strain  ; 

More  frequent,  as  the  glooms  of  midnight  flee, 
And  hours  roll  round,  that  brought  him  lib 
erty, 


AUTUMN.  71 

When  Summer's  early  dawn,  mild,  clear,  and 

bright, 

Chased  quick  away  the  transitory  night  :  — 
Hours  now  in  darkness  veiled  ;  yet  loud  the 

scream 

Of  geese  impatient  for  the  playful  stream  ; 
And  all  the  feathered  tribe  imprisoned  raise 
Their  morning  notes  of  inharmonious  praise  ; 
And  many  a  clamorous  hen  and  cock'rel  gay, 
When  daylight  slowly  through  the  fog  breaks 

way, 

Fly  wantonly  abroad  :  but,  ah,  how  soon 
The  shades  of  twilight  follow  hazy  noon, 
Shortening  the  busy  day !  — day  that  slides  by 
Amidst  the  unfinished  toils  of  husbandry  : 
Toils  still  each  morn  resumed  with  double 

care 

To  meet  the  icy  terrors  of  the  year  ; 
To  meet  the  threats  of  Boreas  undismayed, 
And  Winter's  gathering  frowns  and  hoary  head. 

Then  welcome,  Cold  ;  welcome,  ye  snowy 

nights ! 

Heaven  midst  your  rage  shall  mingle  pure 
delights, 


72  AUTUMN. 

And  confidence  of  hope  the  soul  sustain, 
While  devastation  sweeps  along  the  plain  : 
Nor  shall  the  child  of  poverty  despair, 
But  bless  the  Power  that  rules  the  changing 

year ; 
Assured  —  though  horrors  round  his  cottage 

reign  — 
That  Spring  will  come,  and  Nature  smile 

again. 


WINTER. 


TENDERNESS  TO  CATTLE.  FROZEN  TURNIPS.  THE  COW-YARD. 
NIGHT.  THE  FARM-HOUSE.  FIRESIDE.  FARMER'S  ADVICE  AND 
INSTRUCTION.  NIGHTLY  CARES  OF  THE  STABLE.  DOBBIN. 
THE  POST-HORSE.  SHEEP-STEALING  DOGS.  WALKS  OCCA 
SIONED  THEREBY.  THE  GHOST.  LAMB  TIME.  RETURNING 
SPRING.  CONCLUSION. 


jITH  kindred  pleasures  moved,  and 

cares  opprest, 

Sharing  alike  our  weariness  and  rest ; 
Who  lives  the  daily  partner  of  our  hours, 
Through  every  change  of  heat,  and  frost,  and 

showers, 

Partakes  our  cheerful  meals,  partaking  first 
In  mutual  labor,  and  fatigue,  and  thirst ; 
The  kindly  intercourse  will  ever  prove 
A  bond  of  amity  and  social  love. 


76  WINTER. 

To  more  than  mail  this  generous  warmth  ex 
tends, 

And  oft  the  team  and  shivering  herd  be 
friends  ; 

Tender  solicitude  the  bosom  fills, 
And  pity  executes  what  reason  wills  : 
Youth,  learns  compassion's  tale  from  every 

tongue, 
And  flies  to  aid  the  helpless  and  the  young. 

When  now,  unsparing  as  the  scourge  of  war, 
Blasts  follow  blasts,  and  groves  dismantled 

roar, 
Around  their  home  the  storm-pinched  cattle 

lows, 

No  nourishment  in  frozen  pastures  grows  ; 
Yet  frozen  pastures  every  morn  resound 
With    fair    abundance     thundering    to   the 

ground. 

For  though  on  hoary  twigs  no  buds  peep  out, 
And  e'en  the  hardy  brambles  cease  to  sprout, 
Beneath  dread  Winter's  level  sheets  of  snow 
The  sweet  nutritious  turnip  deigns  to  grow. 
Till  now  imperious  Want  and  wide-spread 

Dearth 


WINTER.  77 

Bid  Labor  claim  her  treasures  from  the  earth. 
On  Giles,  and  such  as  Giles,  the  labor,  falls, 
To  strew  the  frequent  load  where  hunger 

calls. 

On  driving  gales  sharp  hail  indignant  flies, 
And  sleet,  more  irksome  still,  assails  his  eyes  ; 
Snow  clogs  his  feet ;  or  if  no  snow  is  seen, 
The  field  with  all  its  juicy  store  to  screen, 
Deep  goes  the  frost,  till  every  root  is  found 
A  rolling  mass  of  ice  upon  the  ground. 
No  tender  ewe  can  break  her  nightly  fast, 
Nor  heifer  strong  begin  the  cold  repast, 
Till  Giles  with  ponderous  beetle  foremost  go, 
And  scattering  splinters  fly  at  every  blow  ; 
When  pressing  round  him,  eager  for  the  prize. 
From  their  mixed  breath  warm  exhalations 

rise. 

In  beaded  rows  if  drops  now  deck  the  spray, 
While  the  sun  grants  a  momentary  ray, 
Let  but  a  cloud's  broad  shadow  intervene, 
And  stiffened  into  gems  the  drops  are  seen  ; 
And  down  the  furrowed  oak's  broad  southern 

side 
Streams  of  dissolving  rime  no  longer  glide. 


78  WINTER. 

Though  night   approaching  bids  for  rest 

prepare, 

Still  the  flail  echoes  through  the  frosty  air, 
Nor  stops  till  deepest  shades  of  darkness  come, 
Sending  at  length  the  weary  laborer  home. 
From  him,  with  bed  and  nightly  food  sup 
plied, 
Throughout  the  yard,  housed  round  on  every 

side, 

Deep-plunging  cows  their  rustling  feast  enjoy, 
And  snatch  sweet  mouthfuls  from  the  passing 

boy, 

Who  moves  unseen  beneath  his  trailing  load, 
Fills  the  tall  racks,  and  leaves  a  scattered  road  ; 
Where  oft  the  swine  from  ambush  warm  and 

dry 

Bolt  out,  and  scamper  headlong  to  their  sty, 
When  Giles  with  well-known  voice,  already 

there, 
Deigns  them  a  portion  of  his  evening  care. 

Him,  though  the   cold  may  pierce,  and 

storms  molest, 

Succeeding  hours  shall  cheer  with  warmth 
and  rest ; 


WINTER.  79 

Gladness  to  spread,  and  raise  the  grateful 

smile, 

He  hurls  the  fagot  bursting  from  the  pile, 
And  many  a  log  and  rifted  trunk  conveys, 
To  heap  the  fire,  and  wide  extend  the  blaze, 
That  quivering  strong  through  every  opening 

flies, 

Whilst  smoky  columns  unobstructed  rise. 
For  the  rude  architect,  unknown  to  fame 
(Nor  symmetry  nor  elegance  his  aim), 
Who  spread  his  floors  of  solid  oak  on  high, 
On  beams  rough  hewn,  from  age  to  age  that  lie, 
Bade  his  wide  fabric  unimpaired  sustain 
The  orchard's  store,  and  cheese,  and  golden 

grain; 

Bade  from  its  central  base,  capacious  laid, 
The   well-wrought    chimney  rear  its  lofty 

head ; 
Where  since  hath  many  a  savory  ham  been 

stored, 
And  tempests  howled  and  Christmas  gambols 

roared. 

Flat  on  the  hearth  the  glowing  embers  lie, 
And  flames  reflected  dance  in  every  eye  ; 


80  WINTER 

There  the  long  billet,  forced  at  last  to  bend, 
While  gushing  sap  froths  out  at  either  end, 
Throws    round    its    welcome    heat  :  —  the 

ploughman  smiles, 

And  oft  the  joke  runs  hard  on  sheepish  Giles, 
Who  sits  joint  tenant  of  the  corner-stool, 
The  converse  sharing,  though  in  duty's  school ; 
For  now  attentively  't  is  his  to  hear 
Interrogations  from  the  master's  chair. 

"  Left  ye  your  bleating  charge,  when  day 
light  fled, 

Near  where  the  haystack  lifts  its  snowy 
head  ? 

Whose  fence  of  bushy  furze,  so  close  and 
warm, 

May  stop  the  slanting  bullets  of  the  storm. 

For,  hark  !  it  blows  ;  a  dark  and  dismal 
night  : 

Heaven  guide  the  traveller's  fearful  steps 
aright  ! 

Now  from  the  woods,  mistrustful,  and  sharp- 
eyed, 

The  fox  in  silent  darkness  seems  to  glide, 

Stealing  around  us,  listening  as  he  goes, 


WINTER.  81 

If  chance  the  cock  or  stammering  capon  crows, 
Or  goose,  or  nodding  duck,  should  darkling 

cry, 

As  if  apprised  of  lurking  danger  nigh  : 
Destruction  waits  them,  Giles,  if  e'er  you 

fail 

To  bolt  their  doors  against  the  driving  gale. 
Strewed  you  (still  mindful  of  the  unsheltered 

head) 

Burdens  of  straw,  the  cattle's  welcome  bed  ] 
Thine   heart  should  feel,  what  thou   mayst 

hourly  see, 

That  duty's  basis  is  humanity. 
Of  pain's  unsavory  cup  though  thou  must 

taste 

(The  wrath  of  Winter  from  the  bleak  north 
east), 

Thine  utmost  sufferings  in  the  coldest  day 
A  period  terminates,  and  joys  repay. 
Perhaps  e'en  now,  while  here  those  joys  we 

boast. 
Full  many  a  bark  rides  down  the  neighboring 

coast, 
Where  the  high  northern  waves  tremendous 


roar 


82  WTNTEK. 

Drove  down  by  blasts  from  Norway's  icy 

shore. 

The  sea-boy  there,  less  fortunate  than  thou, 
Feels  all  thy  pains  in  all  the  gusts  that  blow  ; 
His  freezing  hands  now  drenched,  now  dry, 

by  turns  ; 
Now  lost,  now  seen,  the  distant   light  that 

burns, 

On  some  tall  cliff  upraised,  a  flaming  guide, 
That  throws  its  friendly  radiance  o'er  the  tide. 
His  labors  cease  not  with  declining  day, 
But  toils  and  perils  mark  his  watery  way  ; 
And  whilst  in  peaceful  dreams  secure  we  lie, 
The  ruthless  whirlwinds  rage  along  the  sky, 
Round  his  head  whistling  ;  —  and  shalt  thou 

repine, 
rfhile    this    protecting    roof    still    shelters 

thine  ?  " 

Mild  as  the  vernal  shower,  his  words  pre 
vail, 

And  aid  the  moral  precept  of  his  tale  : 
His  wondering  hearers  learn,  and  ever  keep 
These  first  ideas  of  the  restless  deep  : 
And,  as  the  opening  mind  a  circuit  tries, 


WINTER.  83 

Present  felicities  in  value  rise. 
Increasing  pleasures  every  hour  they  find, 
The  warmth  more  precious,  and  the  shelter 

kind  ; 
Warmth  that  long  reigning  bids  the  eyelids 

close. 
As  through  the  blood  its  balmy  influence 

goes, 
When  the  cheered  heart  forgets  fatigues  and 

cares, 
And  drowsiness  alone  dominion  bears. 

Sweet  then  the  ploughman's  slumbers,  hale 

and  young, 

When  the  last  topic  dies  upon  his  tongue  ; 
Sweet  then  the  bliss  his  transient  dreams  in 
spire, 
Till   chilblains  wake  him,  or   the   snapping 

fire  : 

He  starts,  arid  ever  thoughtful  of  his  team, 
Along  the  glittering  snow  a  feeble  gleam 
Shoots  from  his  lantern,  as  he  yawning  goes 
To  add  fresh  comforts  to  their  night's  repose  ; 
Diffusing  fragrance  as  their  food  he  moves, 
And  pats  the  jolly  sides  of  those  he  loves. 


84  WINTER. 

Thus  full  replenished,  perfect  ease  possest, 
From  night  till  morn  alternate  food  and  rest, 
No  rightful  cheer  withheld,  no  sleep  debarred, 
Their  each  day's  labor  brings  its  sure  reward. 
Yet  when  from  plough  or  lumbering  cart  set 

free, 

They  taste  awhile  the  sweets  of  liberty  : 
E'en  sober  Dobbin  lifts  his  clumsy  heel 
And  kicks,  disdainful  of  the  dirty  wheel ; 
But  soon,  his  frolic  ended,  yields  again 
To  trudge  the  road,  and  wear  the  clinking 

chain. 

Short-sighted  Dobbin! — thou  canst  only- 
see 

The  trivial  hardships  that  encompass  thee  : 
Thy  chains  were  freedom",  and  thy  toils  re 
pose, 
Could  the  poor  post-horse  tell  thee  all  his 

woes, 

Show  thee  his  bleeding  shoulders,  and  unfold 
The  dreadful  anguish  he  endures  for  gold  : 
Hired  at  each  call  of  business,  lust,  or  rage, 
That  prompts  the  traveller  on  from  stage  to 
stage. 


WINTER.  85 

Still  on  his  strength  depends  their  boasted 

speed  ; 
!For  them  his  limbs  grow  weak,  his  bare  ribs 

bleed  ; 

And  though  he  groaning  quickens  at  com 
mand, 

Their  extra  shilling  in  the  rider's  hand 
Becomes  his  bitter  scourge, — 'tis  he  must  feel 
The  double  efforts  of  the  lash  and  steel ; 
Till  when,  up  hill,  the  destined  hill  he  gains, 
And,  trembling  under  complicated  pains, 
Prone   from    his    nostrils,   darting    on    the 

ground, 

His  breath  emitted  floats  in  clouds  around  ; 
Drops  chase  each  other  down  his  chest  and 

sides, 

And  spattered  mud  his  native  color  hides  : 
Through  his  swoln  veins  the  boiling  torrent 

flows, 

And  every  nerve  a  separate  torture  knows. 
His  harness  loosed,  he  welcomes,  eager-eyed, 
The  pail's  full  draught  that  quivers  by  his 

side  ; 

And  joys  to  see  the  well-known  stable-door, 
As  the  starved  mariner  the  friendly  shore. 


86  WINTER. 

Ah,  well  for  him  if  here  his  suffering  ceased, 
And  ample  hours  of  rest  his  pains  appeased  ! 
But  roused  again,  and  sternly  bade  to  rise, 
And  shake  refreshing  slumber  from  his  eyes, 
Ere  his  exhausted  spirits  can  return, 
Or  through  his  frame  reviving  ardor  burn, 
Come  forth  he  must,  though  limping,  maimed, 

and  sore  ; 
He  hears   the   whip,   the   chaise  is   at  the 

door : — 

The  collar  tightens,  and  again  he  feels 
His  half-healed  wounds  inflamed;  again  the 

wheels 

With  tiresome  sameness  in  his  ears  resound, 
O'er  blinding  dust,  or  miles  of  flinty  ground. 
Thus  nightly  robbed   and  injured   day  by 

day, 

His  peacemeal  murderers  wear  his  life  away. 
What   sayest   thou,   Dobbin  ?   what  though 

hounds  await 

With  open  jaws  the  moment  of  thy  fate, 
No  better  fate  attends  his  public  race  ; 
His  life  is  misery,  and  his  end  disgrace. 
Then  freely  bear  thy  burden  to  the  mill ; 
Obey  but  one  short  law,  —  thy  driver's  will. 


WINTER.  87 

Affection,  to  thy  memory  ever  true, 

Shall  boast  of  mighty  loads   that  Dobbin 

drew ; 
And  back  to  childhood  shall  the  mind  with 

pride 

Recount  thy  gentleness  in  many  a  ride 
To  pond,  or  field,  or  village  fair,  when  thou 
Held'st  high  thy  braided  main  and  comely 

brow ; 

And  oft  the  tale  shall  rise  to  homely  fame 
Upon  thy  generous  spirit  and  thy  name. 

Though  faithful  to  a  proverb  we  regard 
The  midnight  chieftain  of  the  farmer's  yard, 
Beneath  whose  guardianship  all  hearts   re 
joice, 

"Woke  by  the  echo  of  his  hollow  voice  ; 
Yet  as  the  hound  may  faltering  quit  the  pack, 
Snuff  the  foul  scent  and  hasten  yelping  back : 
And  e'en  the  docile  pointer  know  disgrace, 
Thwarting  the  general  instinct  of  his  race  ; 
E'en  so  the  mastiff,  or  the  meaner  cur. 
At  times  will  from  the  path  of  duty  err 
(A  pattern  of  fidelity  by  day, 
By  night  a  murderer,  lurking  for  his  prey), 


00  WINTER. 

And  round  the  pastures  or  the  fold  will  creep, 
And,  coward-like,  attack  the  peaceful  sheep. 
Alone  the  wanton  mischief  he  pursues, 
Alone  in  reeking  blood  his  jaws  imbrues  ; 
Chasing  amain  his  frightened  victims  round, 
Till   death    in    wild    confusion    strews    the 

ground  ; 

Then  wearied  out,  to  kennel  sneaks  away, 
And  licks  his  guilty  paws  till  break  of  day. 

The  deed  discovered,  and  the  news  once 

spread, 
Vengeance  hangs  o'er  the  unknown  culprit's 

head  : 

And  careful  shepherds  extra  hours  bestow 
In  patient  watchings  for  the  common  foe,  — 
A  foe  most  dreaded  now,  when  rest  and  peace 
Should  wait  the  season  of  the  flock's  increase. 

In  part  these  nightly  terrors  to  dispel, 
Giles,  ere  he  sleeps,  his  little  flock  must  tell. 
From  the  fireside  with  many  a  shrug  he  hies, 
Glad  if  the  full-orbed  moon  salute  his  eyes, 
And  through  the  unbroken  stillness  of  the 
night 


WINTER.  89 

Shed  on  his  path  her  beams  of  cheering  light. 
With  sauntering  step  he  climbs  the  distant 

stile, 

Whilst  all  around  him  wears  a  placid  smile  ; 
There  views  the  white-robed  clouds  in  clus 
ters  driven, 

And  all  the  glorious  pageantry  of  heaven. 
Low,  on  the  utmost  boundary  of  the  sight, 
The  rising  vapors  catch  the  silver  light ; 
Thence  Fancy  measures,  as  they  parting  fly, 
Which  first  will  throw  its  shadow  on  the  eye, 
Passing  the  source  of  light,  and  thence  away, 
Succeeded  quick  by  brighter  still  than  they. 
Far  yet  above  these  wafted  clouds  are  seen 
(In  a  remoter  sky,  still  more  serene) 
Others,  detached  in  ranges  through  the  air, 
Spotless  as  snow,  and  countless  as  they  're  fair ; 
Scattered  immensely  wide  from  east  to  west, 
The  beauteous  semblance  of  a  flock  at  rest. 
These,  to  the  raptured  mind,  aloud  proclaim 
Their  Mighty  Shepherd's  everlasting  name. 

Whilst  thus  the  loiterer's  utmost  stretch  of 

soul 
Climbs  the  still  clouds,  or  passes  those  that  roll, 


90  WINTER. 

And  loosed  imagination  soaring  goes 
High  o'er  his  home,  and  all  his  little  woes, 
Time  glides  away  ;  neglected  duty  calls  ; 
At  once  from  plains  of  light  to  earth  he  falls, 
And  down  a  narrow  lane,  well  known  by  day, 
With  all  his  speed  pursues  his  sounding  way, 
In  thought  still  half  absorbed  and  chilled  with 

cold, 

When  lo  !  an  object  frightful  to  behold  ; 
A  grisly  spectre,  clothed  in  silver-gray, 
Around  whose  feet  the  waving  shadows  play, 
Stands  in  his  path !  —  He  stops,  and  not  a 

breath 
Heaves  from  his  heart,  that  sinks  almost  to 

death. 

Loud  the  owl  halloos  o'er  his  head  unseen  ; 
All  else  is  silent,  dismally  serene  : 
Some  prompt  ejaculation,  whispered  low, 
Yet  bears  him  up  against  the  threatening  foe  ; 
And  thus  poor  Giles,  though  half  inclined  to 

fly, 

Mutters  his  doubts,  and  strains  his  steadfast 
eye. 

"  7T  is  not  my  crimes  thou  com'st  here  to  re 
prove  ; 


WINTER.  91 

No  murders  stain  my  soul,  no  perjured  love  ; 
If  thou  'rt  indeed  what  here  thou  seem'st  to 

be, 

Thy  dreadful  mission  cannot  reach  to  me. 
By  parents  taught  still  to  mistrust  mine  eyes, 
Still  to  approach  each  object  of  surprise, 
Lest  Fancy's  formful  visions  should  deceive 
In  moonlight  paths,  or  glooms  of  falling  eve, 
This  then's  the  moment  when  my  mind  should 

try 

To  scan  thy  motionless  deformity  ; 
But  0,  the  fearful  task  !  yet  well  I  know 
An  aged  ash,  with  many  a  spreading  bough 
(Beneath  whose  leaves  I've  found  a  Summer's 

bower, 
Beneath  whose  trunk  I  Ve  weathered  many  a 

shower), 

Stands  singly  down  this  solitary  way, 
But  far  beyond  where  now  my  footsteps  stay. 
7T  is  true,  thus  far  I  Ve  come  with  heedless 

haste  ; 

No  reckoning  kept,  no  passing  objects  traced. 
And  can  I  then  have  reached  that  very  tree  1 
Or  is  its  reverend  form  assumed  by  thee  1 " 
The  happy  thought  alleviates  his  pain  : 


92  WINTER. 

He  creeps  another  step  ;  then  stops  again  ; 
Till  slowly,  as  his  noiseless  feet  draw  near, 
Its  perfect  lineaments  at  once  appear  ; 
Its  crown  of  shivering  ivy  whispering  peace, 
And  its  white  bark  that  fronts  the  moon's  pale 

face. 
Now,  whilst  his  blood  mounts  upward,  now 

he  knows 

The  solid  gain  that  from  conviction  flows  ; 
And  strengthened  confidence  shall  hence  fulfil 
(With  conscious  innocence  more  valued  still) 
The   dreariest   task  that  Winter  nights  can 

bring, 

By  churchyard  dark,  or  grove,  or  fairy  ring ; 
Still  buoying  up  the  timid  mind  of  youth, 
Till  loitering  Reason  hoists  the  scale  of  Truth. 
With  these  blest  guardians  Giles  his  course 

pursues, 

Till,  numbering  his  heavy-sided  ewes, 
Surrounding  stillness  tranquillize  his  breast, 
And  shape  the  dreams  that  wait  his  hours  of 

rest. 

As  when  retreating  tempests  we  behold, 
Whose  skirts  at  length  the  azure  sky  unfold, 


WINTER.       .  93 

And  full  of  murmurings  and  mingled  wrath, 
Slowly  unshroud  the  smiling  face  of  earth, 
Bringing  the  bosom  joy  :  so  Winter  flies  !  — 
And  see  the  source  of  life  and  light  uprise  ! 
A  heightening  arch   o'er   southern  hills   he 

bends, 

Warm  on  the  cheek  the  slantingbeam descends, 
And  gives  the  reeking  mead  a  brighter  hue, 
And  draws  the  modest  primrose-bud  to  view. 
Yet  frosts  succeed,  and  winds  impetuous  rush, 
And  hail-storms  rattle  through  the  budding 

bush  ; 
And  night-fallen  lambs  require  the  shepherd's 

care, 
And  teeming  ewes,  that  still  their  burdens 

bear  ; 
Beneath  whose  sides  to-morrow's  dawn  may 

see 
The  milk-white  strangers  bow  the  trembling 

knee  ; 
At  whose  first  birth  the  powerful  instinct 's 

seen 

That  fills  with  champions  the  daisied  green  : 
For  ewes  that  stood  aloof  with  fearful  eye, 
With  stamping  foot  now  men  and  dogs  defy, 


94  WINTER. 

And,  obstinately  faithful  to  their  young, 
Guard  their  first  steps  to  join  the  bleating 
throng. 

But  casualties  and  death  from  damps  and 

cold 

Will  still  attend  the  well-conducted  fold  : 
Her  tender  offspring  dead,  the  dam  aloud 
Calls,  and  runs  wild  amidst  the  unconscious 

crowd  : 

And  orphaned  sucklings  raise  the  piteous  cry  ; 
No  wool  to  warm  them,  no  defenders  nigh. 
And  must  her  streaming  milk  then  flow  in 

vain  ? 

Must  unregarded  innocence  complain  ? 
No  ;  —  ere  this  strong  solicitude  subside, 
Maternal  fondness  may  be  fresh  applied, 
And  the  adopted  stripling  still  may  find 
A  parent  most  assiduously  kind. 
For  this  he  'a  doomed  a  while  disguised  to 

range 
(For  fraud  or  force  must  work  the  wished-foi 

change)  ; 

For  this  his  predecessor's  skin  he  wears, 
Till,  cheated  into  tenderness  and  cares, 


WINTER.  95 

The  unsuspecting  dam,  contented  grown, 
Cherish  and  guard  the  fondlings  as  her  own. 

Thus  all  by  turns  to  fair  perfection  rise  ; 
Thus  twins  are  parted  to  increase  their  size : 
Thus  instinct  yields  as  interest  points  the  way, 
Till  the  bright  flock,  augmenting  every  day, 
On  sunny  hills  and  vales  of  springing  flowers 
"With  ceaseless  clamor  greet  the  vernal  hours. 


The  humbler  shepherd  here  with  joy  be 
holds 

The  approved  economy  of  crowded  folds, 
And,  in  his  small  contracted  round  of  cares, 
Adjusts  the  practice  of  each  hint  he  hears  ; 
For  boys  with  emulation  learn  to  glow, 
And  boast  their  pastures,  and  their  healthful 

show 

Of  well -grown  lambs,  the  glory  of  the  Spring  ; 
And  field  to  field  in  competition  bring. 
E'en  Giles,  for  all  his  cares  and  watchings 

past, 

And  all  his  contests  with  the  wintry  blast, 
Claims  a  full  share  of  that  sweet  praise  be 
stowed 


96  WINTER. 

By  gazing  neighbors,  when  along  the  road, 
Or  village  green,  his  curly  coated  throng 
Suspends  the  chorus  of  the  spinner's  song  ; 
When  admiration's  unaffected  grace 
Lisps  from  the  tongue,  and  beams  in  every 

face  : 
Delightful  moments !  —  sunshine,  health,  and 

j°y 

Play  round,  and  cheer  the  elevated  boy  ! 
"  Another  Spring  !  "  his  heart  exulting  cries  ; 
"  Another  year  ! "  with   promised  blessings 

rise !  — 
"  Eternal  Power !  from  whom  those  blessings 

flow, 

Teach  me  still  more  to  wonder, more  to  know: 
Seed-time  and  harvest  let  me  see  again  ; 
Wander  the    leaf-strewn   wood,    the   frozen 

plain  : 
Let  the  first  flower,  corn-waving  field,  plain, 

tree, 
Here  round  my  home  still  lift  my  soul  to 

thee  ; 

And  let  me  ever,  midst  thy  bounties,  raise 
An  humble  note  of  thankfulness  and  praise  ! " 


•  />M.    1/vM 


MODERN  CLASSICS. 

11.  The  Princess.   ) 

Maud.  >  TENNYSON. 

Locksley  Hall.  ) 

12.  Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning.    An  Essay  by  E.  C.  STEDMAN. 
Lady  Geraldine's  Courtship.     MRS.  BROWNING. 

Favorite  Poems.    ROBERT  BROWNING. 

13.  Goethe.    An  Essay  by  CARLYLE. 


14.  Schiller.    An  Essay,  by  CARLYLE. 

The  Lay  of  the  Bell  ;  Fridolin.  )  ~          __ 
Favorite  Poems.  j  bCHILLER 

15.  Burns.    An  Essay,  by  CARLYLE. 
Favorite  Poems.     BURNS. 
Favorite  Poems.     SCOTT. 

16.  Byron.    An  Essay,  by  MACAULAY. 
Favorite  Poems.     BYRON. 
Favorite  Poems.     HOOD. 

17.  Milton.    An  Essay,  by  MACASLAY. 
L'Allegro,  II  Penseroso.     MILTON. 

Elegy  in  a  Country  Churchyard,  etc.     GRAY. 

18.  The  Deserted  Village,  etc.    GOLDSMITH. 
Favorite  Poems.     COVVPER. 

Favorite  Poems.    MRS.  HEMANS. 

19.  Character!  sties.    CARLYLE. 
Favorite  Poems.     SHELLEY. 

The  Eve  of  St.  Agnes,  etc.    KEATS. 

20.  An  Essay  on  Man.  )  T>  ' 
Favorite  Poems.       }  PopE« 
Favorite  Poems.     MOORE. 

21.  The  Choice  of  Books.     CARLYLS. 
Essays  from  Elia.     LAMB. 
Favorite  Poems.    SOUTHBY. 

22.  Spring.     1 

1=  [THOMSON. 
Winter.    J 

23.  The  Pleasures  of  Hope.  \  r  .,„»„,  •, 
Favorite  Poems.  j  CAMPBELL. 
Pleasures  of  Memory.    ROGERS. 

-  See  page  opposite  inside  of  first  cover. 


MODERN  CLASSICS. 


SHAKESPEARE. 
Favorite  Poems.    LEIGH  HUNT. 

25.  Favorite  Poems.     HERBERT. 

Favorite  Poems.    COLLINS,  DRYDEN,  MARVELL. 
Favorite  Poems.    HERRICK. 

26.  Lays  of  Ancient  Rome,  and  other  Poems.    MACAULAY. 
Lays  of  the  Scottish  Cavaliers.    AYTOUN. 

27.  Favorite  Poems.    CHARLES  KINGSLEY. 
Favorite  Poems.     OWEN  MEREDITH. 
Favorite  Poems.     STEDMAN. 

28.  Nathaniel  Hawthorne.    An  Essay,  by  FIELDS. 
Tales  of  the  White  Hills.    )  HAWTHORNE 
Legends  of  New  England.  }  WAWTHORNE. 

29.  Oliver  Cromwell.    CARLYLE. 

A  VirtUOSO's  Collection. 

Legends  of  the  Province  House. 

30.  Favorite  Poems.  )  TT  __ 
My  Hunt  after  "The  Captain."  f  MOLME 

31.  My  Garden  Acquaintance.  )  T  nwTTTT 
A  Moosehead  Journal,  etc.  }  M***"" 
The  Farmer's  Boy.    BLOOMFIELD. 

32.  A  Day's  Pleasure.  1 
Buying  a  Horse. 

> 


Flitting.  >  HOWELLS. 


The  Mouse. 

-•  J 


A  Year  in  a  Venetian  Palace. 


33.  Selections  from  the  Breakfast-Table  Series  and  from  Pages 

from  an  Old  Volume  of  Life.     HOLMES. 

34.  Thackeray's  Lighter  Hours.     Selections.    (With  portrait.! 

THACKERAY. 
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